Idris Elba to star in New Thriller “Bastille Day”

Its official!  Focus Features has acquired the North American distribution rights to Bastille Day starring Idris Elba. The announcement was made at the Cannes Film Festival, last week.

StudioCanal will back the upcoming action thriller internationally in France, UK, Germany, Australia, and New Zealand.

Bastille Day will be produced in Paris later this summer. Cast mate Adèle Exarchopoulos, known for Blue is the Warmest Color, will join Elba. Andrew Baldwin wrote the script, which will be directed by James Watkins.

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“Bastille Day” is about “a U.S. agent (Elba) whose job is to make a young American man “disappear,” after it is uncovered that he’s linked to a terrorist attack in Paris. However, things change when the agent discovers that the man is actually innocent of the crime, after several more terrorist attacks occur, while the man is supposed to have “disappeared,” meaning someone else is responsible, and it’s the agent’s job to sniff him/her out.”

Peter Schlessel, CEO of Focus Features, said, “We are all excited to be working with James, these accomplished producers, and the incomparable Idris Elba on what will surely be a thrill ride set in Paris, one of the greatest cities in the world.”

Elba has also joined the cast of Disney’s live-action/CG hybrid movie adaptation of Rudyard Kipling’s The Jungle Book and will star in Cary Fukunaga’s film adaptation of Uzodinma Iweala’s bestselling debut novel Beasts of No Nation and several other big projects.

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