MPCA, SPWA play Assassination Games with Van Damme

Krevoy, whose MPCA is ramping up production, produced the action title with MediaPro Studios and said Assassination Games marked a resurgence for the iconic Belgian actor.

MPCA’s Justin Bursch and Patrick Newall also produced and MPCA’s Reuben Liber and Mike Callaghan served as executive producers on the story of Vincent Brazil, an assassin who encounters a younger hitman called Roland Flint (Scott Adkins) after they are assigned to kill the same mobster.

Ernie Barbarash directed the film – formerly called Weapon – from a screenplay by Aaron Rahsaan Thomas. Serbian actress Marija Karan plays October, a young woman who becomes embroiled in the killers’ plans. 

The project shot on location in New Orleans, Louisiana, and at MediaPro Studios in Bucharest, Romania. SPWA’s Dan Primozic and Peter Nelson brokered the deal with Liber on behalf of MPCA. 

“This is one of the first films in a long time that [Van Damme] has been the major lead,” Krevoy, who previously collaborated with Van Damme on Hard Corps, said. “He plays a new role as a mentor to the Scott Adkins character and it’s him and a younger guy together, which is a way of expanding his audience. This is Van Damme 2.0, on the rise in a new action role.”

Krevoy said of the deal with SPWA: “I have had a relationship with all divisions of Sony for the past 20 years so this was a natural evolution. It made sense for them to distribute and me to produce.”

He added later: “We are sitting on about 10 stories and we have a couple of huge ones. In the past we sold our films to the studios but now we are embarking on a major push with our international sales company.”

MPCA has produced, acquired, and distributed more than 100 films including Dumb And Dumber, Beverly Hills Chihuahua 2 and Taking Chance. Upcoming titles include the English-language remake of the Japanese Oscar winner Departures and a remake of Japanese fantasy romance Yomigaeri with DreamWorks.