After last years awesome survival-thriller THE GREY, how on Earth did Liam Neeson not get an Oscar nomination, one remake I was looking forward to was director Joe Carnahan’s interpretation of Michael Winner’s DEATH WISH. It originally starred the acting icon Charles Bronson and I always felt the 1974 revenge ‘classic’ (based on the novel by Brian Garfield) was always overrated, but it did have a strong lead in Bronson as the unforgiving vigilante Paul Kersey. A man, who after hearing his wife is murdered in a mugging and his daughter assaulted in the process, decides to clean the streets of New York himself.
Carnahan has been working on a remake Winner’s film and seemed the perfect choice to helm the vicious and vengeful plot line. Sadly, he has vacated the project due to creative differences. The film was set to co-star THE GREY’s Frank Grillo, with the director looking at Russell Crowe or a reuniting with Liam Neeson for the lead, but the studio financing the project wanted a more action-orientated effort and were pushing for Bruce Willis as the antihero. A development that seems to have broke the camel’s back.
It’s expected Carnahan will now board 20th Century Fox’s NARCO SUB, a thriller previously attached to the late Tony Scott. Early plot details suggest the film is a drug-centric action thriller centred on submersible crafts used by South American drug cartels to smuggle products into the US. The film will be based on a script by SAFEHOUSE’s David Guggenheim.
Source: Deadline
