Eternal badass Gerard Butler is something of a one-man army, and now he's set to star in the action thriller Kandahar, which will reunite him with Ric Roman Waugh, the director of Angel Has Fallen and Butler's upcoming movie Greenland.
Waugh will direct from a script he co-wrote with former military intelligence officer Mitchell LaFortune, and the story is based on LaFortune’s experiences at the Defense Intelligence Agency in Afghanistan during the time of the Edward Snowden leaks.
Butler will star as Tom Harris, an undercover CIA operative working in the Middle East when his covert identity and classified mission are revealed by a dangerous intelligence leak. Stuck in the heart of hostile territory, Harris and his translator must fight their way out of the desert to an extraction point in Kandahar while eluding the elite special forces hunting them.
Butler and his manager Alan Siegel will produce under their G-BASE banner along with Basil Iwanyk and Erica Lee of Thunder Road Films, as well as Christian Mercuri of Capstone Group. Rob Moran will executive produce alongside Brendon Boyea and Jonathan Fuhrman. Kandahar is expected to be filming on location in the Middle East.
CAA Media Finance arranged the financing and will represent the film’s U.S. rights, while Capstone will co-finance the project and handle international sales at the virtual Cannes market.
Thunder Road, which is also behind the John Wick and Sicario franchises, acquired LaFortune's original screenplay back in 2016. Kandahar reunites Iwanyk with Butler and Waugh, who recently teamed on STX’s upcoming thriller Greenland, which is slated to hit theaters on Aug. 14. Waugh also directed Butler in Angel Has Fallen, the third film in the Fallen franchise that was a major improvement over its predecessor, London Has Fallen.
“We are so thrilled to be able to bring the Greenland band back together again. Mitch’s script has always been a jewel in our slate, and to have this team bring it to life is a dream come true for us," Iwanyk said in a statement.
Waugh is a former stuntman who wrote and directed the 2008 indie Felon starring Stephen Dorff and Val Kilmer. From there, Waugh went on to direct Dwayne Johnson in the action thriller Snitch, where he also worked with Jon Bernthal and Benjamin Bratt. The latter duo went on to co-star in Waugh's best film, 2017's excellent prison drama Shot Caller starring Nikolaj Coster-Waldau. I love that movie, and for what it's worth, I think Greenland looks pretty interesting, too, so I look forward to seeing what Waugh and Butler cook up the third time around. The premise for Kandahar certainly sounds familiar, so here's hoping Waugh will find a way to make it more memorable.
Butler always has a few action thrillers in the works, as he's also attached to star in STX's Remote Control, and the indie movie The Plane from Transformers producer Lorenzo di Bonaventura. Click the links above for more on those projects.