Director Guy Ritchie’s upcoming action flick, which was shopped to buyers at the Toronto Film Festival as Five Eyes, has added Saw and The Princess Bride star Cary Elwes and rapper Bugzy Malone to the roster. Parks and Recreation star and cooky comedienne Aubrey Plaza has also now been confirmed to be joining the cast, which will be led by action star and frequent Ritchie collaborator Jason Statham.
The thriller finds Jason Statham in typical gruff-talking, action hero territory as the superbly named Orson Fortune, an MI6 guns-and-steel agent who is “recruited by a global intelligence alliance to track down and stop the sale of a deadly new weapons technology that threatens to disrupt the world order. Reluctantly paired with a CIA high-tech expert, Fortune sets off on a globe-trotting mission where he will have to use all his charm, ingenuity, and stealth to track down and infiltrate billionaire arms broker.” Whether the character names have been ditched along with the title is unknown, but if Statham’s character is not named either Orson Fortune or something equally superb is should be considered a cinematic crime.
While details on the other roles is unknown at this time, the “CIA high-tech expert” was previously named Sarah Fidel, making it likely that this is the part that Aubrey Plaza will be playing. The movie sounds like the perfect combination of odd-couple banter and explosive, fist-throwing action that should be perfectly suited to Plaza and Statham.
“Guy and Jason have repeatedly impressed audiences with their collaborations, and we’re looking forward to bringing this production to the city of Doha, Qatar, a growing market in the entertainment and media space,” said Nasser Al-Khelaifi, chairman of Miramax-owner beIN Media Group.
“This film marks our third collaboration with Guy Ritchie, adding to our expanding list of nearly 20 projects having been released or currently in production since beIN’s acquisition of Miramax – a testament to our continued success achieving the target goals we set forth for the studio’s evolution while remaining committed to prioritizing investments in innovative and culturally relevant films.”
Ritchie will direct and produce from a screenplay written by Ivan Atkinson and Marn Davies, both of whom have worked with the director several times on projects such as 2019’s crime comedy The Gentlemen. The movie will also be produced and financed by Miramax with STX handling distribution. The movie was previously titled Five Eyes but is currently untitled.
British rapper Bugzy Malone has worked under the direction of Ritchie in the past, also on The Gentlemen, which finds the Snatch director in familiar territory and follows an American expat who tries to sell off his highly profitable marijuana empire in London, triggering plots, schemes, bribery and blackmail in an attempt to steal his domain out from under him.
Ritchie and Statham launched their careers together back in 1998 with the crime comedy caper Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, and are also reuniting for action thriller Wrath of Man, which follows Statham as a man who must move hundreds of millions of dollars for an armored truck company, alongside the untitled adventures of Orson Fortune. This comes to us from Deadline.
