Pierre Morel struck action movie gold with his first two flicks, the kinetic street brawler District B13 and then Taken, which made being old and kicking ass cool again. Turns out third time wasn't the charm, though, as From Paris With Love fell into the category of bad John Travolta films where he has even worse hair(or in this case no hair). And while that may have set him back a little bit, Morel still has enough clout to get a film in the works for his protege, Antonio Negret(Seconds Apart), to direct.
Negret will direct Overdrive, a France set action pic which has just landed it's two leads in Ben Barnes(Prince Caspian) and Karl Urban(Star Trek). The script comes from Derek Haas and Michael Brandt, writers of Wanted and 2 Fast 2 Furious. The duo came up with the idea after spending 10 days in France, and discovering that Marseilles is a beautiful, cinematic city. No sh*t. The film was initially taken to Fox, who balked at the $30M budget, and Morel stepped in to fill the void.
The story centers on two adventurous brothers who get more trouble than they bargained for while in the south of France. Game of Thrones star Emilia Clarke is in talks to play the female lead. Urban will be seen next in the Judge Dredd relaunch, and will be shooting the Star Trek sequel some time next year. Barnes has The Words, starring Bradley Cooper, and also recently took over the lead in the upcoming adaptation of The Seventh Son. [THR]
