Screen Queensland has revealed further details of Scott Waugh’s action film Runner, starring Reacher’s Alan Ritchson and Owen Wilson, with filming now underway in the Sunshine State.
Reports emerged on Sunday of Wilson touching down in Australia for the project, which began production just over a week after Derrick Borte’s Bear Country, also produced by Nickel City Pictures and A Higher Standard, had wrapped with Russell Crowe, Aaron Paul, Teresa Palmer, Nina Dobrev, and Luke Evans.
Unlike Bear Country, Runner is set in Brisbane as well as the nearby Gold Coast, starring Ritchson as Hank Malone, a high-end courier faced with a harrowing, life-or-death mission: deliver an organ to a seven-year-old girl in need of an immediate transplant.
The straightforward task rapidly devolves into a perilous game of cat and mouse when outside interests get involved and set their sights on claiming the organ. Wilson will play Ben, the medical courier that Ritchson’s character is begrudgingly forced to transport and protect.
Written by Miles Hubley and Tommy White, the film is produced by Nickel City Pictures’ Mark Fasano, A Higher Standard’s Jeffrey Greenstein, G2 Dispatch’s Deborah Glover, Todd Garner, and Dan Spilo (Industry Entertainment).
It was lured to Queensland via the federal Location Offset, the Queensland government through the Production Attraction Strategy, and the City of Gold Coast, with the expectation it would contribute $20 million to the state’s economy and employ almost 90 local cast and crew during production.
Screen Queensland CEO Jacqui Feeney said that A Higher Standard and Nickel City Pictures making back-to-back productions in Queensland was a great example of the growth in repeat business that the state’s screen production sector was achieving.
“Queensland is a film-friendly state with a highly skilled crew base and an array of locations close to studio and post-production facilities,” she said.
“With the strong backing of state and federal governments through competitive incentives, we are well positioned to deliver outstanding results for productions across a range of budgets and technical requirements.”
Greenstein was pleased to continue collaborating with Mark Fasano and Nickel City Pictures in Queensland.
“The location and aesthetic offer incredibly cinematic and diverse landscapes and scenery, so we thought, ‘How better to follow up than actually shooting a film here that is set here?’,” he said.