Friday
16May
Gerard Butler is Frank Darabont's 'Law Abiding Citizen'
Friday, May 16, 2008 at 8:33PM
More news out of Cannes not about one of the many films on Europe's biggest
stage for film but rather about a movie in the works.
Screen Daily tells us that
Frank Darabont, who has kind of fumbled his last two films,
The Majestic and
The
Mist, will avoid the letter 'M' altogether for his next flick, a thriller
starring
Gerard Butler from 300.
Law
Abiding
Citizen
begins production in Detroit this August, and already I like it. Detroit
is one of those places that's hard to recreate in Vancouver or L.A. And, well,
let's just say the motor city has a history that can inform a gritty crime
drama. Butler will play a prosecutor in the film who fights to keep a mob boss
from controlling the city's criminal activity from his prison cell.
I think the word "thriller" is a good adjustment for Darabont. He knows his
way around prison movies, making the best one ever in
The Shawshank Redemption,
and another very good one in
The Green Mile. But his storytelling is a bit
languid. That's great for some projects, not great for others. Hopefully, he'll
take the script by
Kurt Wimmer (Equilibrium, The Thomas
Crown Affair) and give it his usual dedication while allowing a
little more tension than we're used to from Darabont.
The combination of director and star also meshes pretty well. The question
remains as to who will play the mastermind orchestrating the crime scene from
inside prison, but since it's not like actors go out of their way to avoid Frank
Darabont, I think he'll probably find someone suitable in a hurry.
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