Millennium Media is reuniting with The Outpost director Rod Davis Lurie and star Scott Eastwood on Second World War action feature Lucky Strike with Colin Hanks and Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor.
Sales talks have begun in Toronto and the producers have earmarked a November start of production on the story of a wounded American soldier (Eastwood) who struggles to survive behind enemy lines in war-torn Belgium during the Battle of the Bulge, the Germans’ final offensive of the conflict.
Taylor John Smith rounds out the key cast on the project, which is based on an interview screenwriter and producer Marc Frydman conducted with a war veteran when he was 16. BondIt Media Capital is financing the project.
Frydman, Lurie, Millennium Media president Jonathan Yunger, Yariv Lerner, and Les Weldon are serving as producers. Millennium’s Avi Lerner, Trevor Short, and JJ Nugent are executive producers alongside Julie Kroll and Lati Grobman, and BondIt’s Matthew Helderman and Luke Taylor.
The shoot will take place at Millennium Media’s Nu Boyana Studios in Bulgaria. Millennium Media jointly handles US rights with UTA Independent Film Group.
“Because of Marc’s intimate connection to this story and my military background, this is very personal for both of us,” said Lurie, who graduated from the West Point military academy in 1984 and served four years as a combat arms officer in the U.S. Army prior to his career in entertainment.
“Rod is a phenomenal filmmaker and given his military background, he can take these larger-than-life true stories and show sensitivity and humanity while still bringing in the thrills and action,” said Yunger.
Lurie’s feature directing credits include 2019 Afghanistan war film The Outpost, which starred Eastwood, Caleb Landry Jones, and Orlando Bloom, as well as 2000 political thriller The Contender.
Eastwood currently stars in 1992 and will be seen in the kidnapping drama Stolen Girl alongside Kate Beckinsale, action film Alarum opposite Sylvester Stallone, and the sequel to Wind River. His credits include Fast X, Suicide Squad, and Pacific Rim: Uprising.
Hanks most recently shot Nuremberg with Russell Crowe, Rami Malek and Michael Shannon and can be seen in the romantic comedy And Mrs. Among his credits are Jumanji: The Next Level, and Paramount+ series The Offer alongside Miles Teller.
Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor is currently in The Supremes At Earl’s All-You-Can-Eat for Searchlight/Hulu and the upcoming awards season hopeful Nickel Boys. She has starred in Origin and King Richard,
Smith was recently seen in Sony’s Where The Crawdads Sing opposite Daisy Edgar-Jones and just wrapped Alex Garland and Ray Mendoza’s film Warfare for A24.
Millennium Media has two films coming out later this year: Megan Fox AI thriller Subservience and Hellboy: The Crooked Man.
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