EXCLUSIVE: Denzel Washington, whose most recent action effort Safe House premieres in New York tonight, is in discussions to take on another action drama involving Universal Pictures. He’s in early talks to join Mark Wahlberg in 2 Guns, a film that’s based on a Steven Grant graphic novel published by Boom! Studios. Baltasar Kormakur will direct the film. He’s coming off the Universal remake of his own film Contraband, which starred Wahlberg. The script was written by Blake Masters. The financing of the film is still coming together, though I’m told that Emmett/Furla Films the likely co-financier. Marc Platt is producing along with Boom!’s Andrew Cosby and Ross Richie. Randall Emmett and George Furla will likely join that roster.

My international colleague Nancy Tartaglione is covering Berlin this week and is already hearing that the film will be a hot sales title there. Universal will distribute and market in the U.S.

Washington just completed the Robert Zemeckis-directed Flight, playing a pilot with a sobriety problem who pulls off a Sully-like landing of a commercial airliner and saves the passengers, only to see his dark secret surface. That’s a prestige film, but 2 Guns puts him back in badass mode. From Man on Fire to Training Day and American Gangster, nobody does badass better than Washington. In 2 Guns, a DEA agent and an undercover naval intelligence officer unwittingly investigate each other as each steals mob money. Washington is repped by WME.