We don’t even remember reporting on the Jeffrey Dean Morgan project “The Courier” (honestly, who keeps close tabs on JDM?), but hey, apparently it exists.
And now it’s on our radar because it looks like Mickey Rourke and Til Schweiger (“Inglourious Basterds”) have joined the cast.
The project will be helmed by Palestinian director Hany Abu-Assad whose controversial 2005 film “Paradise Now” won a Golden Globe for best foreign language film. Abu-Assad was supposed to direct Rourke in “11 Minutes” alongside Vincent Cassel, and Alice Braga (“Predators” “I Am Legend”); the project was announced in March 2009, and scheduled to begin production later in the year, but if that ever shot, we never heard about it (most likely it did not).
The Wrap, who brings us this report, doesn’t mention “11 Minutes,” but does give more details on “Courier,” an action thriller written by Derek Haas and Michael Brandt (“3:10 to Yuma”) and therefore a completely different project (the original project was about sex clubs and a protagonist with a serious S&M addiction that threatens to ruin his life).
According to The Wrap, the picture centers on a courier (Morgan) “hired to deliver a briefcase to a notorious crime boss who can’t be found. The courier finds himself pursued by corrupt cops, double-crossing feds and rivals from the criminal underworld.” In related news, Schweiger has also apparently joined the cast of McG’s “This Means War” with Chris Pine, Tom Hardy and Reese Witherspoon.
I think Haas/Brandt are off this now, which is sad for it was their very first project that started them off way back then… but things do have a tendency to come around full circle so hopefully it landed back in their laps