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LOS ANGELES – October 27, 2011 – Gerard Butler, Sam Worthington and Matthew McConaughey will star in Freedom Films’ upcoming action thriller “Thunder Run” with Simon West set to direct, announced Brian Presley, CEO of Freedom Films, who will produce alongside Carissa Buffel and Kevin Matusow of Freedom Films and Jib Polhemus of The Graphic Film Company. Additional casting will begin in the next week. Hyde Park International has signed on for international sales.
“Thunder Run,” is an all CG 3-D action thriller based on the novel “Thunder Run – The Armored Strike to Capture Baghdad,” by Pulitzer Prize-winning correspondent David Zucchino. Adapting the story for the screen are Academy Award-winner Robert Port and Ken Nolan, screenwriter of “Black Hawk Down.” The Graphic Film Company will utilize proprietary facial-capture technology they used on West’s upcoming “Night of the Living Dead: Origins 3-D” along with the motion capture technology used in “AVATAR.”
“We are very excited to have attracted this outstanding level of acting and writing talent. ‘Thunder Run’ will be the first ever conventional war film made to utilize this revolutionary facial and motion capture technology and state of the art CG and 3D. Simon and I have developed this project over the last five years so it will be nice to see it come alive,” commented Presley.
“Thunder Run” is the untold story of the dangerous and bloody capture of Baghdad by American Forces at the onset of the Iraq War. In April 2003, three battalions and fewer than a thousand men launched a violent thrust of tanks and Bradley Fighting Vehicles into the heart of a city of five million, igniting a three-day blitzkrieg, which military professionals often refer to as a lightning strike, or “thunder run.” In telling the story of the surprise assault on Baghdad- one of the most decisive battles in recent American combat history–this movie paints the harrowing picture of the soldiers on the front lines and the realities of modern warfare.
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With all due respect to our soldiers, I’ll be sitting out all Iraq-themed “entertainment” for quite some time, thanks.
I second that motion.
A film trying to cash in on a war which has cost thousands of our soldier’s lives.
A cast with no talent.
I too, will sit this one out.
This sounds like a huge mess!
First: It’s about American Soldiers and only one of the leads is American.
Second: All three of these actors are terrible.
Third: It’s a 3D/CGI film. I thought the jury had ruled on 3D and sent it to jail…and that all we had to do was endure the handful of films still to come — those that were made when everyone thought 3D was the answer to everyone’s woes.
Both Butler and Worthington are only “famous” for their work in films where you can’t really tell where they end and the work of a computer begins — so after a a string of b.o. failures for both…it’s nice to see them returning to the well.
How is this going to work as all computer generated? Will it look animated?
Will certainly be interesting to see how this works on a modern war film.
The irony is, Worthington looks less rigid when he’s CGI. The guy has very little range as an actor.
What amazes me is that the announcement of a film featuring at least two of the supposedly biggest stars in the world musters four comments, all of which are negative. The studios have well and truly destroyed the star system, but it was a short term move and has ultimately had a negative impact on their businesses. Who do people care about anymore? Tom Hanks? Julia Roberts? Both bombed this summer. Where’s the Gable, Bogart, Taylor, Monroe, Nicholson, Pacino or De Niro of this era? Probably working in off Broadway theater because he or she is too charismatic to ever be allowed anywhere near a camera. Studios aren’t listening to the audiences. Revenue may be up overall because of continually increasing ticket prices, but attendance keeps going one way: Down. And yet there is a great deal of pent up demand for good films – look at the success of The Help and The Debt this summer. Look also at the number of angry film fans who posted in response to the box office report a couple of weeks ago, which featured a studio executive asking the question, where are all the hardcore movie fans?
They’re sitting at home watching classic movies like The Godfather. Instead of trying to cater to them, Hollywood continues to churn out the same anemic crap. It continues to try to push actors that the public has no interest in, rather than create stars who might develop a little too much power. Hollywood is a bubble, and in that bubble, so-and-so might be ‘hot’, but in the real world, people will only get truly excited by actors who have something that jumps off the screen, be it charisma, immense talent, or sex appeal – they have to possess something out of the ordinary, which is what makes them a star. With a couple of exceptions, we’re being fed a diet of ordinary men and women, and are being told that they are stars, when they most certainly are not.
A. Iraq movies are becoming the new Holocaust movies. Hollywood is exploiting these stories and creating misconceptions about what actually went on. Remember Jacob The Liar. Patch Adams in a concentration camp. This sounds like Saving Private Ryan in Baghdad, but much shittier.
B. Gerard Butler still hasn’t proven that he can do a believable American accent. Worthington is one of the more boring actors that Hollywood is fawning over. And they are both foreign, playing Americans. Are there no worthy American actors that can play these roles? Of course there are. Channing Tatum, Joe Gordon Levitt, Brolin, etc… Why is Hollywood so far up the ass of Australian actors?? Also, why is Gerard Butler considered a good actor? Seriously,…
Wait, that’s Gerard Butler’s American accent?
@ Fan: You hit the nail on the head; The Star System is well and truly dead.
A couple of years ago, George Clooney was called The Last Movie Star by Time, and it appears as though those words are ringing louder as each and every ‘star’ after Clooney’s peak, which was quite some time ago, has failed to live up to expectations in every department.
This new generation of actors seem to be devoid of any charisma and personality (Something which you would think is important being an actor) and fall frighteningly short of ability. Without the above traits, the X factor that so many stars of yesteryear had due to these traits, will so obviously be non existent in today’s generation.
Worthington and Co. were not picked up for their ability though; they were picked as landscape for films which ended up being driven towards visuals and not performance, and as a result, have been picked up for further projects, even though Worthington’s attempts at an American accent fall embarrassingly short.
Stars are dead.
3D is alive.
This movie must be sponsored by Unisom, because this bland collection of actors will put you to sleep.
Gerard Butler caught lightning in a bottle with 300 and Law Abiding Citizen, his other roles were snoozers.
Sam Worthington caught lightning in a bottle with Avatar.He couldn’t even breathe life into Perseus in Clash of the Titans. C’mon man!
Matthew McConaughey, unless it is Tropic Thunder of the Lincoln Lawyer, he has been sleepwalking through roles for years.
This is the best Hollywood could do for an Iraq War themed cast?
I was with you until you said “Channing Tatum”, talk about a talentless, boring actor. Seriously, how does THAT guy keeping getting work, or any of these bland white guys.
There are currently NO Black, Hispanic or Asian shows on any of the five commercial networks and the most popular presentation of Black people among white moviegoers is a film about maids. Okay. We’ve officially gone back to the 40s.