Gerard Butler and Frank Grillo will star in the next film from “The Grey” director Joe Carnahan, an action thriller called “COPSHOP” that Open Road Films will release theatrically in the U.S.
In “COPSHOP,” a small-town police station becomes the unlikely battleground between a professional hitman (Butler), a smart rookie female cop, and a double-crossing con man (Grillo), who seeks refuge behind bars with no place left to run.
Kurt McLeod wrote the original screenplay based on a story by McLeod and Mark Williams, while Carnahan penned the most recent draft.
Principal photography is set to commence in October, and the film will shoot in Georgia and New Mexico.
STXinternational is handling foreign distribution and will release “COPSHOP” directly in the UK and Ireland, and STX will also present the project to buyers virtually at the upcoming Toronto International Film Festival.
Mark Williams and Tai Duncan of Zero Gravity Management are producing “COPSHOP” alongside Warren Goz and Eric Gold of Sculptor Media, Butler and Alan Siegel’s G-BASE Productions, and Carnahan and Grillo through their WarParty Films production banner. The film’s executive producers are James Masciello, Matthew Sidari and Tom Ortenberg for Open Road Films.
Raven Capital Management, which acquired Open Road Films in 2018 and recently relaunched the theatrical film distributor with former head Tom Ortenberg at the helm, developed “COPSHOP” in partnership with Sculptor and Zero Gravity, and is fully financing. CAA Media Finance arranged the project’s financing and domestic distribution deal.
“WarParty is beyond excited to be teaming with Raven, Open Road, STX and G-BASE on ‘COPSHOP.’ We feel that this is a movie that can play big globally but be made sensibly and we are always looking for this type of ‘elevated genre’ where the writing really drives the action and the drama. We also couldn’t be happier to have someone with the box-office power of Gerard Butler as our partner in crime on this film,” Grillo and Carnahan said in a statement.
“We have been working with Raven for almost a decade to create an infrastructure that has come to fruition in the last couple of years and is now further manifesting itself with our second in-house development title to go to production. We are extremely proud of this accomplishment and we have many more in the pipeline,” Goz said in a statement.
“Our business is really all about building complementary partnerships,” Masciello said in a statement. “‘COPSHOP’ perfectly demonstrates this concept. Our production, finance and studio platform, including everything from in-house development to worldwide theatrical release capability enables us to bring value to best in class creative partners, such as all of those we are working together with on ‘COPSHOP’. Separately, we are thrilled to be partnering with STX on the international distribution of the film, which has enabled us to move with great speed on this project even in a time of unprecedented uncertainty.”
“I’m thrilled to be teaming up with Joe Carnahan for the fifth time and Frank Grillo has been a good luck charm for Open Road since its inception, having been featured in Joe’s film ‘The Grey,’ ‘End of Watch’ and ‘Homefront.’ Putting Joe and Frank together with one of the biggest action stars in the world in Gerard Butler in Joe’s exciting script for ‘COPSHOP’ is a recipe for a big theatrical hit,” Ortenberg said.
Butler will next be seen in STX’s “Greenland” and will also be seen in Lionsgate’s “The Plane” and the action film “Kandahar.”
Grillo, who is reuniting with Carnahan after starring in “The Grey” and his upcoming “Boss Level,” will also be seen in “Once Upon a Time in Staten Island” and “The Hitman’s Bodyguard’s Wife.”
Gerard Butler is represented by CAA and Alan Siegel Entertainment. Frank Grillo is represented by CAA and Management 360. Joe Carnahan is represented by CAA and Paul Hastings. Raven, Open Road and Sculptor are represented by DLA Piper. Kurt McLeod is represented by Zero Gravity Management and Weintrob Tobin.