Gerard Butler and Frank Grillo are teaming up with director Joe Carnahan (The Grey, The A-Team) in action thriller Copshop that STXinternational will introduce to Toronto buyers later this month and Open Road will distribute in the US.

STX will distribute directly in the UK. Open Road, the revived distributor led by Tom Ortenberg, worked with Carnahan when it released his 2011 survival thriller The Grey.

Copshop takes place in a small-town police station that becomes the unlikely battleground between a professional hitman (Butler), a smart rookie female police officer, and a double-crossing conman (Grillo), who seeks refuge behind bars with no place left to run.

Principal photography is set to commence in October in Georgia and New Mexico.

Kurt McLeod wrote the original screenplay based on a story by McLeod and Mark Williams. Carnahan wrote the most recent draft.

Mark Williams and Tai Duncan of Zero Gravity Management are producing alongside Warren Goz and Eric Gold of Sculptor Media, Butler and Alan Siegel’s G-BASE Productions, and Carnahan and Grillo through their WarParty Films production banner.

Executive producers are James Masciello, Matthew Sidari and Ortenberg for Open Road Films.

Raven Capital Management, which acquired Open Road Films in 2018 and recently relaunched the theatrical distributor, developed Copshop in partnership with Sculptor and Zero Gravity, and is fully financing the film. CAA Media Finance arranged the project’s financing and brokered the distribution deal with Open Road.

STX will present the project to buyers virtually at the upcoming Toronto International Film Festival.

Butler currently stars in STX’s Greenland and upcoming releases include Lionsgate’s action/thriller The Plane, and Kandahar.

Grillo’s credits include Captain America: Civil War, the Purge franchise, and Wolf Warrior II.

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