Cannes 2015: C2M, SP International Join For Action Franchise Venture, HIGH SPEED

There's more news out of Cannes this week and while plenty of the announcements made have been amply exciting and refreshing, others haven't had as much of an impact, particulatly with regard to the niche exclusive to fighting games and the fandom in support of a certain Namco/Bandai property back in the running for a remake. Low and behold, however, this one involves an entirely seperate entity with updates pertaining to the new movie, High Speed.

According to Variety, China's C2M Media will be jointly financing the new action movie co-production with producer Steven Paul's indie banner, SP International. Initially with the hopes of getting stunt veteran and filmmaker Vic Armstrong on board to direct, Paul has been working on getting this particular production up and running for a while with the last known report dating as far back as 2013 as Screendaily. The plot at the time illustrated the film's inspired vision likened toward Cannonball Run (1981) and the Fast And Furious franchise with a story centered on the CIA's globetrotting mission to put the breaks on a potentially catastrophic criminal plot set to unfold during a multi-vehicular rally chase. The new report claims no specfic plot or cast/crew as it stands, except that the film is being described as "an action packed race around the world" with the intent on expanding into franchise of its own. Production is set to commence at the bottom of the year with a versatile Asian and European cast led by a principal American actor, and plans to finish in time for a 2017 release in Asia via C2M Media and in North America via Sony Pictures through its output deal with Paul's company.

So, an action packed race around the world eh? And it's titled High Speed, so I imagine fast cars, jets, jet packs, speed boats...basically Fast And Furious on a global scale is what comes to mind for me. It sounds fun and I think this could become something worthwhile for a franchise if it all works out.

I'm not letting up on that other thing though. That one is kind of important to me, and I'm not alone here.

Stay tuned for more info.

Photo: Cannonball Run