EXCLUSIVE: Eric Bana was previously attached but now I’ve learned that action star Jason Statham is interested but hasn’t signed yet. Hyde Park International will start selling the pic in Berlin. Echelon is based on the novel Firewall, the 3rd book in pseudonymous author Andy McNab’s 13-book series. It will be the 3rd movie financed through the $250 million Hyde Park/Imagenation Abu Dhabi deal after Ghost Rider 2 and The Double. Simon Crane, stunt coordinator on The Tourist and Salt, will make his feature directing debut on this adaptation of the action thriller novel by bestselling novelist Andy McNab. Ashok Amritraj of Hyde Park Entertainment is producing alongside veteran casting agent Bonnie Timmermann (Public Enemies) and Steve Chasman, who’s worked with Statham ever since Transporter (2002). Statham would play Nick Stone, an SAS soldier who finds himself caught between the Russian Mafia and western secret agents trying to get their hands on the Echelon computer program. McNab is an ex-SAS soldier who wrote the bestselling non-fiction account Bravo Two Zero of going behind enemy lines in the first Iraq war. Then the author branched out into thrillers featuring his Nick Stone character and a series of Young Adult books.