Actor and former wrestler John Cena is currently in negotiations to star in Pierre Morel's action-comedy film 'Freelance', which Stuart Ford's AGC will be selling at the upcoming virtual American Film Market.
According to Deadline, Endurance Media's Steve Richards will produce the project alongside Sentient Entertainment's Renee Tab and Christopher Tuffin. Endurance will co-finance with AGC, while UTA and ICM would handle it domestically.
'Freelance', which is budgeted in the USD 40 million range, follows a special forces operator (Cena) who decides to retire from the Army and start a family back in the states. After several years of mortgage payments, school drop-offs, backyard barbecues and trying to conform to life in suburbia, he decides to come out of retirement to take a gig providing security for a female journalist as she interviews a cruel dictator who may or may not have ordered the attack on him and his men.
When a military coup breaks out in the middle of the interview, the three are forced to escape into the jungle where they must survive the elements, the military and one another.
The project is due to start early next year in Colombia and will likely be among the in-demand packages at the virtual AFM, which gets underway on November 1. Writer Jacob Lentz of 'Jimmy Kimmel Live!' fame will be making his feature writing debut. Additional casting for 'Freelance' is also in process.
'Trainwreck' and 'Blockers' actor Cena is set to appear in 'Fast and the Furious 10', the sequel to Hulu's 'Vacation Friends', and HBO Max's 'Suicide Squad' spinoff series 'The Peacemaker' which will commence airing in January, as per Deadline.
French filmmaker Morel is best known as the director of 'Taken', the modestly budgeted French indie thriller that went on to make nearly USD 300M worldwide and spawned two sequels and a TV series.
His other work includes the spy drama 'The Gunman' starring Sean Penn, Javier Bardem and Mark Rylance, and the Jennifer Garner starrer 'Peppermint' which grossed more than USD 35M domestically.
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