Luke Evans (“The Hobbit”) will star in “Three Seconds,” a prison thriller from producer Basil Iwanyk (“John Wick”), directed by Otto Bathurst.
Written by Matt Cook, “Three Seconds” is an adaptation of a best-selling novel by Scandinavian writing duo Anders Roslund and Borge Hellstrom, new crime masters.
It turns on a man who is dispatched by the FBI to infiltrate the Polish mafia’s New York drug trade. Forced undercover in maximum security prison when his cover’s sprung and he’s abandoned by the FBI, his only chance of survival is to break out of the prison or die.
Sales agent Bloom has already announced sales rights at Berlin on “Jadotville,” a true event Congo-set battle actioner with Jamie Dornan (“Fifty Shades of Grey”) and France’s Guillame Canet (“Last Night”).
At a 2015 Berlin market, “Three Seconds” and “Jadotville” are already being talked up by buyers as very attractive.
Principal photography on “Three Seconds” is set to begin this Spring in New York.
“We are looking forward to presenting this fun and fast paced script to buyers in Berlin,” said Walton. “It’s a great package: An immensely commercial project with a talented and seasoned team between Otto, Basil and Kevin.”
Gone are the days when straight-arrow generic fare racked up reliable sales in international. “Audiences are looking for something different,” Walton said in the run-up to this year’s EFM.
That edge on “Three Seconds” should come from Brit director Bathurst, renowned in Britain for his critically acclaimed Netflix/Tiger Aspect series “Peaky Blinders,” a BAFTA Television Craft Award winner, the “Black Mirror” series, and the BBC original miniseries “Criminal Justice,” which took a 2009 BAFTA Best Drama Serial TV Award.
