Guy Ritchie, who gained international fame and critical acclaim in the late ’90s for directing crime comedies such asLock, Stock and Two Smoking BarrelsandSnatch, is back with a new project. Filming has begun on the British director’s upcoming action-thriller in Alicante, Spain.
The untitled feature starsOscar nominee Jake Gyllenhaalas Sgt. John Kinley, one of the sole survivors of a violent ambush during a patrol in Afghanistan. After Ahmed, the local interpreter he’s been teamed up with, risks his own life to carry Kinley’s injured body to safety, all while still being followed by dangerous local militias, Kinley learns that Ahmed and his family are not allowed on US soil as promised. Our hero then decides to return to the ravaged warzone to rescue Ahmed and his family before the militias get to them.
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Joining Gyllenhaal is Dar Salim, known for his work in the Danish action miniseriesWarrior, in the role of Ahmed. The rest of the cast includes Anthony Starr (Amazon’sThe Boys), Alexander Ludwig (The Hunger Games), Emily Beecham (Cruella), and Bobby Schofield (Anne). The film also features Jason Wong and Sean Sagar, both of whom previously starred in 2019’sThe Gentlemen, which marked Ritchie’s highly-awaited return to the gangster genre that had garnered him widespread acclaim. Fresco Film, a Spanish production company located in Malaga, is currently supplying local production services in Alicante. The Mediterranean city serves as a replacement for the Afghanistan locations. Deadline reported on the project officially starting production.
Besides taking the director’s chair, Ritchie co-wrote the script with Marn Davies and Ivan Atkinson, who are frequent collaborators and have worked with him in previous projects,includingWrath of Man,which was released in May 2021. Ritchie and Atkinson are also producing alongside John Friedberg and Josh Berger, while Olga Filipuk and Samantha Waite are set to executive-produce. It remains unclear exactly when the untitled film is going to be released, though it’s expected to premiere in 2023 or late 2022 at the earliest, given that filming has just started.
Nevertheless, Ritchie will maintain a hectic schedule while fans await the forthcoming project, as he’s also set to direct his first-ever war film,Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare,which is based on a nonfiction book written by Damien Lewis and published in 2016.The movie is set in 1939, and it will tell the story ofEngland’s first black ops team, which operated during the Second World War.
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