Sometimes, a Hollywood production slate can be like a line of dominoes – it just takes a nudge at one end to get the whole lot moving. Writer-director-producer Joe Carnahan faced some scheduling challenges when his Death Wish re-make rolled into production without him – but now that his producing job on Wheelman for Netflix has borne highly anticipated fruit, another long-gestating film is regaining some lost momentum – and it’s called Five Against A Bullet.
The action film has been championed by producer Lorenzo di Bonaventura for a number of years, and originated with a script by Alex Litvak (Predators). Joe Carnahan was hired in 2014 to direct and re-write that script – but little has been heard of it since.
Five Against A Bullet tells the story of a Mexican politician who hires five hard-nosed bodyguards to provide him with security after his father is murdered by a drug cartel, ahead of a particularly contentious election. Lorenzo di Bonaventura has previously described the film in terms of the success of its action sequences and characterization.
“Joe [Carnahan] and I just put on a project called Five Against a Bullet, which I’ve loved for a long time. It is a tale of a group of men who have become cynical, sort of lost their sense of hope about life and the world, who are rekindled and betrayed and rekindled and betrayed in this story, and it’s got some of the coolest action and some of the greatest characters, and it’s a really fantastic action movie that I think will really grab people. And Joe’s working on it right now… We have a great script and no doubt he’ll put a little pen to paper as well, but we’re already in great shape and Sony loves the project and no doubt we’ll start trying to figure out how to cast that.”
The rumour mill is now suggesting that Jackie Chan could be joining Five Against A Bullet, as one of the cynical bodyguards. Presumably, with this legendary icon possibly attached to the project, the wider cast will begin to fill out quickly. As such, we’ll be watching closely for further announcements.