Russell Crowe and Liam Hemsworth are set to reunite for another Australian shoot in the form of Will Eubank’s action thriller Land of Bad.
Fresh from working on Crowe’s own thriller Poker Face in Sydney last year, the pair will star opposite each other in the newly-announced project, set to begin principal photography in September.
Written by David Frigerio and Eubank, Land of Bad follows Reaper (Crowe), an Air Force drone pilot supporting a Delta Force special ops mission in the South Philippines.
After the mission goes terribly wrong, he has 48 hours to remedy what has devolved into a wild rescue operation. The Tier One team on the field is joined on the battlefield by Kinney (Hemsworth), a green Air Force JTAC who is thrust into the middle of a high-stakes extraction.
But the ground mission suddenly turns upside down and becomes a full-scale battle when the team is discovered by the enemy. With no weapons and no communication other than the drone above, Reaper becomes the young operator’s only ticket out of the ‘Land of Bad’.
The film is being produced by Broken Open Pictures’ David Frigerio, Eubank, Volition Media Partners’ Adam Beasley, and Michael Jefferson, R.U. Robot, and Highland Film Group, while John Stalberg and Cindy Bru are executive producing. Co-financer Highland Film Group is representing international rights, and will launch sales at the upcoming Marché du Film.
Both Eubank and Frigerio expressed their excitement for the upcoming production in separate statements, with the former saying he “couldn’t be more grateful” to the whole team for “helping bring this project to life”, while the latter “couldn’t be more stoked to be making this timely film, especially with my good friend, Will Eubank piloting the ship”.
Highland Film Group CEO Arianne Fraser said working with Hemsworth and Crowe was “a dream come true”.
“They are both incredible performers who will showcase the powerful sense of brotherhood between the two lead characters,” she said.
COO Delphine Perrier agreed, noting Eubank and Frigerio had crafted a “tense and compelling story full of suspense and intrigue”.
“With Will at the helm, we are thrilled to be working with this uniquely talented filmmaker,” she said.
Crowe will next be seen in Taika Waititi’s Thor: Love and Thunder, and Netflix’s The Greatest Beer Run Ever, directed by Peter Farrelly, while Hemsworth is in the midst of shooting Netflix romantic feature Lonely Planet, written and directed by Susannah Grant.