First reported just a few weeks ago, it has now been confirmed via press release that The Rite and 1408 director Mikael Hafstrom will reunite The Expendables stars Sylvester Stallone and Arnold Schwarzenegger for a new action/thriller titled The Tomb. Stallone will take the part of Ray Breslin, a security expert who needs to escape a prison he himself created. Schwarzenegger will play an inmate who falls on both the good and bad side.
Due to my distate for Hafstrom’s previous work and these two action stars mostly phoning it in recently, I don’t have much excitement for this project. Give me Kim Ji-woon‘s upcoming English-language debut and Schwarzenegger-starring The Last Stand and then we’ll talk. Check out the press release below.
Los Angeles, CA – February 8, 2012 – It was announced today that Arnold Schwarzenegger will star opposite Sylvester Stallone in the action/thriller THE TOMB, which will be directed by Swedish filmmaker Mikael Håfström.
An Emmett-Furla Films/Mark Canton production, the film is produced by Atmosphere Entertainment chairman Mark Canton (300, IMMORTALS), Randall Emmett (LAY THE FAVORITE, RAMBO), George Furla (LAY THE FAVORITE, RAMBO), Robbie Brenner (MACHINE GUN PREACHER, A PERFECT GETAWAY), and Kevin King-Templeton (THE EXPENDABLES, RAMBO, ROCKY BALBOA). Emmett/Furla Films is financing the project. Summit holds worldwide distribution rights to THE TOMB and will release the film in North America.
Written by Miles Chapman for the screen, with a rewrite by Jason Keller, THE TOMB follows Ray Breslin (Stallone) who is the world’s foremost authority on structural security. He’s analyzed every high security prison and has gained a vast array of survival skills. But all Ray’s ingenuity and knowledge are about to be put to work in the most challenging test he’s ever faced: escaping from the master prison of his own design.
Schwarzenegger, in the role of Church, plays a complex inmate with multiple shades of grey. He’s the guy who fights to keep the prisoners from losing their humanity in their darkest hour as they struggle together to stay alive
THE TOMB, which Brenner had originally set up as a spec script at Summit will be shot in Louisiana this spring.
“I am thrilled to be making THE TOMB with two film icons – Sylvester Stallone and Arnold Schwarzenegger,” said producer Mark Canton. “It is the perfect pairing for this high octane thriller. Robbie Brenner, Emmett/Furla, Kevin King-Templeton and I have been working long and hard with Summit to bring them together for this dynamic project.”
Schwarzenegger and Stallone will next be seen on screen together in THE EXPENDABLES 2, which is currently in post-production and will be released this summer by Lionsgate. Schwarzenegger just wrapped filming THE LAST STAND, produced by Lorenzo di Bonaventura and directed by Jee-woon Kim.
Håfström recently directed horror film THE RITE starring Anthony Hopkins for New Line Cinema and Warner Bros. He also directed 2010’s SHANGHAI starring John Cusack; the Jennifer Aniston, Clive Owen thriller DERAILED; MGM’s 1408 starring John Cusak and Samuel L. Jackson, and the Swedish drama EVIL.
Schwarzenegger is repped by CAA. Håfström is repped by WME.