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Here’s one more step in the career upswing of Paul Walker. As we wait for the action shenanigans of Fast & Furious 6 (and the inevitable seventh film) he’s lined up a starring role in the new version of video game series Hitman. And now he’s got another action pic — a remake of Banlieue 13, better known in the US as District B-13.
The remake is to be called Brick Mansions, and will be set in America rather than Paris. In an interesting twist, David Belle, the star of the original film and its sequel, will also appear. Walker’s character will be “an undercover detective chasing a weapon of mass destruction that was stolen by a drug dealer in the ghetto known as Brick Mansions. He seeks help from the incredibly agile Lino (Belle), who knows Brick Mansions better than anyone and is the only person not cowed by the drug dealers.”
Deadline says that Luc Besson and EuropaCorp set Camille Delamarre to direct; Delamarre edited Taken 2 and Colombiana.
After the break, Seth Gordon talks about his WarGames remake and the potential dramatic re-do of King of Kong, and we’ve got the first image from the remake of Danish TV series The Bridge, with the new version made by the director of Miss Bala.
Collider talked to director Seth Gordon (King of Kong, Horrible Bosses) about his new film, Identity Thief, and used the opportunity to get a status update on Gordon’s update of WarGames.
Essentially, [Identity Thief] moved so fast that it just beat it to the punch. That script has now been written. Before, I had pitched the idea and we were finding a writer. Now, the script has been written and MGM is deciding what they want to do. To me, it’s so clearly an awesome idea and it’s gotta be made, as far as I’m concerned. I want to direct it, for sure. I just feel like the amount I know about geek world and def-con, and the places where this kind of stuff happens, makes me especially suited to bring it to life, I think. So, I’m certainly going to keep pushing that forward.
He says he could make WarGames next, or might get to Horrible Bosses 2 first. He also mentions that the dramatic remake of King of Kong is still in the works to some extent, but it sounds like there’s no solid approach set in stone just yet:
That’s just never going to die because there’s something pied piper, siren song about that doc where people want to try to remake it. I think it would be cool as a musical. Having people sing about that stuff would be amazing. It’s just so suited for melodrama that I think that would be great. But, the theatrical script is still in development. This woman, Melissa Stack, wrote it and literally handed her draft in not two weeks ago. I haven’t even had a chance to read it because I’ve been finishing [Identity Thief], but it’s not dead.
Finally, on the TV front, FX is going to air a remake of Danish cop series The Bridge. This version is headed up by Gerardo Naranjo, who made the good drug cartel thriller Miss Bala.
The US version stars Demian Bichir (A Better Life, Savages) and Diane Kruger (Inglourious Basterds, The Host) as cops from opposite sides of the US/Mexico border in El Paso, who join forces to track down a serial killer. It’s an unfortunately true-to-life premise, given the violence that happens as a result of cartel and other criminal activity in the region.
Here’s the first shots of the two actors on set, from CinemaTeaser. Presumably the leftmost one shows the two on the bridge of the title, which is also likely where the victim is found, beginning the story.
