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"Safe House" has got all kinds of heat around it. Firstly, the script by David Guggenheim (no, not Davis, the director of "Waiting For Superman") caused a Hollywood bidding war earlier this year, and after Denzel Washington took the lead role, another minor frenzy was caused as every young actor vied for the co-starring gig, with Ryan Reynolds landing the part. And if that wasn't enough, Daniel Espinosa is set to make his Hollywood debut directing the film getting the gig after his sleek drug drama "Snabba Cash" became a sensation at the Berlin Film Festival earlier this year (and is set for a remake starring Zac Efron).
Well, some more top shelf talent is working on the project as Terry George, screenwriter of "Hotel Rwanda" and "In The Name Of The Father" has been tapped to rewrite the script that tells the story of "a young CIA agent (Reynolds) who must transport a dangerous criminal (Denzel Washington) to safety after they are attacked at a safe house."
Production on the Universal film is set to begin in early 2011 once Reynolds wraps the comedy "The Change Up" and presumably before he begins the long press tour of duty for "Green Lantern."
Rising star Alice Eve has joined the cast of David Brooks' upcoming thriller "ATM," based on a script by Chris Sparling, the writer of the Ryan Reynolds one-man show "Buried."It seems the actress has replaced Margarita Levieva ("Adventureland") who was originally reported to be starring, something that is now implied to be misinformation. Eve will star along side fellow young talents Josh Peck ("The Wackness") and Brian Geraghty ("The Hurt Locker") in the story of three co-workers who take a late-night trip to an ATM only to find themselves in a desperate fight for survival against an unknown male.
Sounds like the handful of Alfred Hitchcock single-setting thrillers? Or even Joel Schumacher's "Phone Booth"? For good reason: the aforementioned projects were noted by Sparling as inspirations for this and the Reynolds' vehicle. "We're eating lunch and ["Buried" producer Peter Safran] just looked at me and said, 'Do you have any other contained thriller ideas? I told him about ["ATM"]. He said, 'Go write it.' And I did."
"When I decided I was going to write a movie about a guy buried alive, I had to look at examples where that sort of thing is successfully done," Sparling explained to the Winnipeg Free Press. "And I remember re-watching 'Lifeboat,' 'Rope,' and 'Phone Booth' and from those movies -- all of them great and successful movies -- I had to learn how this could be pulled off successfully." It's not exactly often you hear the words "great" and "successful" in the same sentence as "Phone Booth."
Hopefully Sparling has learned a few lessons from his first writing effort which we saw and reviewed at TIFF. We described the single-setting in that film as, "a novelty that doesn't stand up to the film's 90 minute running time" and a concept that doesn't take "long before the effect wears off," despite Reynolds' notable performance. "ATM" has been shooting on location in Winnipeg and is director Brooks' major feature debut with only the little-known "Gone" on his resume.
"Safe House" has got all kinds of heat around it. Firstly, the script by David Guggenheim (no, not Davis, the director of "Waiting For Superman") caused a Hollywood bidding war earlier this year, and after Denzel Washington took the lead role, another minor frenzy was caused as every young actor vied for the co-starring gig, with Ryan Reynolds landing the part. And if that wasn't enough, Daniel Espinosa is set to make his Hollywood debut directing the film getting the gig after his sleek drug drama "Snabba Cash" became a sensation at the Berlin Film Festival earlier this year (and is set for a remake starring Zac Efron).
