If you are looking forward to seeing Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sylvester Stallone in “The Expendables 2,” get ready, because the fun isn’t going to stop there. Summit films just announced a few minutes ago that Schwarzenegger has signed on to co-star in the film and Mikael Håfström will be directing.
The film puts Stallone in role of a master security expert who must escape a prison of his own design.
Here’s the official release:
ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER JOINS SYLVESTER STALLONE IN “THE TOMB”
MIKAEL HÅFSTRÖM SIGNS ON AS DIRECTOR
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.
About Summit Entertainment
Summit Entertainment, a LIONSGATE® company, is a worldwide theatrical motion picture development, financing, production and distribution studio. The company handles all aspects of marketing and distribution for both its own internally developed motion pictures as well as acquired pictures. Summit also represents international sales for both its own slate and third party product.
About Emmett/Furla Films
Emmett / Furla Films, the Los Angeles based film production and financing company founded in 1998 by company principals Randall Emmett and George Furla, has quickly emerged as one of the industry’s most prolific production companies with the capacity to develop, package, finance and produce a broad array of films for wide theatrical release.
The company just wrapped production on “Broken City” starring Mark Wahlberg, Russell Crowe and Catherine Zeta-Jones. Other recently completed EFF films include “Frozen Ground” starring John Cusack, Nicolas Cage and Vanessa Hudgens; the Stephen Frears directed comedy “Lay the Favorite” starring Bruce Willis, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Rebecca Hall and Vince Vaughn; the drama “Fire With Fire” starring Josh Duhamel, Bruce Willis and Rosario Dawson; the action / thriller “Freelancers” starring Robert DeNiro, Forest Whitaker and Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson; and the mystery crime thriller “End of Watch” starring Jake Gyllanhall and Anna Kendrick.
New projects set to go in 2012 include “The Tomb” starring Sylvester Stallone and Arnold Schwarzenegger, “2 Guns” with Mark Wahlberg for Universal, “Rule #1” with Reese Witherspoon,” “Empire State” starring Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson and Emile Hirsch, and “The Pursuit” with Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson.
About Atmosphere Entertainment
Founded in late 2003 by noted entertainment industry executive and producer Mark Canton, Atmosphere Entertainment MM, LLC, develops and produces theatrical motion pictures and television programming that will appeal to audiences throughout the world. Atmosphere’s latest film is Immortals, Relativity Media’s epic mythology-themed action adventure starring Henry Cavill, and directed by visionary filmmaker Tarsem. The film, which opened last November has grossed in excess of $200 million worldwide and is the third highest grossing R-rated film of 2011. Among Atmosphere’s recent successes are the mega-hit 300, The Spiderwick Chronicles, based on a series of highly popular children’s graphic novels and Summit’s romantic comedy Letters to Juliet, directed by the late Gary Winick and starring Amanda Seyfried, Vanessa Redgrave, Christopher Egan, Gael García Bernal, and Franco Nero.
In pre-production is The Battle of Artemesia, the companion to 300 which is written by Zack Snyder and Kurt Johnstad and will be directed by Noam Murro for Legendary Pictures and Warner Bros. based on Frank Miller’s latest graphic novel; Young Caesar, based on the first of Conn Iggulden’s internationally acclaimed, best-selling novels, The Gates of Rome, which tells the story of a young Julius Caesar and Marcus Brutus, is adapted by Academy-Award® winner Bill Broyles and Stephen Harrigan and will be directed by Burr Steers; and Tunnels, to be directed by Vincenzo Natali for Relativity, which is expected to be the next sensation in the vein of “Harry Potter”.
In development are Spanking Shakespeare, which reunites Atmosphere with Spiderwick Chronicles producing partner Ellen Goldsmith-Vein and Paramount Pictures, is an hilarious high school comedy about a kid with a funny name who has two things on his mind: getting into college and getting laid; and Play Dead, a fresh and riveting supernatural thriller about football player zombies bent on revenge in a football-obsessed Texas town, is being written by novelist and screenwriter Joe Schreiber based on Ryan Brown’s debut novel with Lucky VIII Films and Davids Canton Productions also producing.