Neeson to shoot thriller in SA
HOLLYWOOD actor Liam Neeson is en route to South Africa, where he will film part of his new movie, the spy thriller Willing Patriot, later this year.
First reported in Variety earlier this week, the Irish star is set to play a CIA agent chasing the clock to track down a terrorist planning an imminent attack. Martin Zandvliet will direct. Open Road Films, which has secured the film’s US distribution rights, announced this week that it would be shot on location in South Africa, Morocco and Tunisia, with a planned worldwide release next year.
A starting date for filming has yet to be announced.
The production will be financed and produced by MadRiver Pictures along with Film 360, Hollywood Gang and Jason Keller.
Open Road Films previously teamed up with Neeson for the movie The Grey, an adventure thriller about oil workers stranded in the Alaskan wilderness after a plane crash.
AThe men have to fight off packs of grey wolves that are stalking them.
“Working with Liam Neeson on The Grey was a fantastic experience, and a success in every way,” said Tom Ortenberg, chief executive of Open Road Films.
“A Willing Patriot, like The Grey, top-notch character-driven film.
“We are thrilled to re-team with Liam and producer Marc Butan,” Ortenberg said.
Open Road said the focus of the film would be an “elaborate cat-and-mouse game” involving the CIA agent and the “sinister terrorist”.
Neeson, 63, has starred in more than 20 Hollywood films, including the Steven Spielberg-directed Schindler’s List, Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace and Richard Curtis’s smash hit, the romantic comedy Love Actually.
In recent years, he had become known for starring in action films, such as the three Taken films.
He also starred as Batman’s rival Ra’s al Ghul in Christopher Nolan’s Batman Begins, the first of the British director’s acclaimed trilogy.
is a