Cast comes together for Wheatley’s next…
‘Kill List’ and ‘Sightseers’ writer-director Ben Wheatley has selected the action thriller ‘Free Fire’ for his next feature, with production scheduled for spring 2015.
Featuring a cast that includes tar Luke Evans (‘Dracula Untold,’ ‘The Hobbit’), Cillian Murphy (‘Inception,’ ‘Peaky Blinders’), Armie Hammer (‘The Man From U.N.C.L.E.,’ ‘The Social Network’), Olivia Wilde (‘Rush,’ ‘Her’) and Wheatley’s regular collaborator Michael Smiley (‘Kill List,’ ‘A Field in England’), the actioner revolves around an arms deal which goes spectacularly wrong. Set in Boston in 1978, the film sees Wilde playing a woman who has brokered a meeting in a deserted warehouse between two Irishmen (played by Murphy and Smiley) and a gang led by Evans and Hammer who are selling them a stash of guns. But when shots are fired in the handover, a heart-stopping game of survival ensues.
“The idea for ‘Free Fire’ came from my love of hard-boiled crime movies; from ‘The Asphalt Jungle,’ ‘The Big Sleep,’ ‘The Killing’ and ‘The Big Combo’ through ‘The Driver,’ ‘Le Samourai’ and ‘The French Connection,’ to the modern cycle of ‘Goodfellas,’ ‘Casino,’ ‘Hard Boiled’ and ‘Reservoir Dogs,’ said Wheatley in a statement.
“Free Fire will take you and stick you in the middle of the action. I want the film to have the stylish, no nonsense feel that you get in Peckinpah’s The Getaway. It’s a modern ‘70s movie. Muscular, tough and spare.”
Wheatley is currently in post production on his latest effort, an adaptation of J.G. Ballard’s ‘High-Rise,’ which stars Tom Hiddleston, Jeremy Irons, Sienna Miller and Luke Evans.