Writer/director David Ayer's cop drama End of Watch is about to wrap up a distribution deal with Open Road with a $2 million guaranteed minimum and $20 million toward prints and advertising. Open Road, the company behind The Grey, has committed to a 2000 screen run with a substantial deal coming in a bit under what the Liam Neeson survival epic garnered. Starring Jake Gyllenhaal, Michael Pena and Anna Kendrick, End of Watch centers on two young police officers in the LAPD who patrol south central Los Angeles. Steve got to go on an exclusive set visit where he got the first two official images from the project. Hit the jump to check them out along with the synopsis for End of Watch. Deadline reported on Ayer's distribution deal with Open Road for End of Watch. The film originally began as a "found footage" drama focusing on the friendship and professional relationship of the two police officers. It has more recently evolved into a traditional narrative, but retains vestiges of the original vision via surveillance cameras and mounted video units in the patrol cars. Speaking on the vision of Ayers was John Lesher, who produced the film via his company, Le Grisbi:

“David has a unique voice as a filmmaker, he writes with authenticity and portrays real characters from the streets where he grew up. He moves you, but the film is very accessible and with these small cameras fabricated and fitted on characters and other places, it creates a 360-degree environment, like it was shot by the cops themselves and has changed the grammar of filmmaking somewhat. Jake and Mike trained five months to be police officers and it shows.”

Check out the official synopsis for End of Watch below:

A powerful story of family, friendship, love, honor and courage, End Of Watch stars Academy Award nominee Jake Gyllenhaal and Michael Peña as young Los Angeles police officers Taylor and Zavala as they patrol the city’s meanest streets of south central Los Angeles.

Giving the story a gripping, first-person immediacy, the action unfolds entirely through footage from the handheld HD cameras of the police officers, gang members, surveillance cameras, and citizens caught in the line of fire to create a riveting portrait of the city’s darkest, most violent corners, the cops who risk their lives there every day, and the price they and their families are forced to pay.