THE FOREIGNER Enlists Martin Campbell To Direct Jackie Chan's Next Action Thriller

It was late last year that Casino Royale helmer Martin Campbell was a frontrunner to direct Relativity Media's forthcoming book adaptation, Hunter Killer. That was long before this week's news of the studio's current financial troubles started making headlines, which now appears to be a reverting point for Campbell who is now in the running to direct one of several of action star Jackie Chan's upcoming films, STX Entertainment's The Foreigner with Wayne Godfrey producing.

The film, which Deadline states will be retitled between now and throughout the course of production, was announced back in June off the heels of another busy season of Chan-related announcements with the film set to go into production this October. Chan will lead the film, based on an adaptation of the 1992 Hodder and Stoughton publication by author Stephen Leather with a script by David Marconi and Peter Buchman, as a former member of the Viet Cong-turned-South London restaurant owner who sets out to avenge the death of his family at the hands of the IRA when the justice system fails.

If you're a regular Chan fanatic, you already know to keep an eye out for more titles. At any rate though, tentatively-titled The Foreigner is already looking like an exciting venture on the action genre, and one that will no less appeal to that of the Taken crowd.

Stay tuned for more details to follow.

Wahlberg Joins Talks For MILE 22 With Berg, Rousey And Uwais

The internet broke back in March when it was announced that Peter Berg would produce forthcoming action thriller, Mile 22 with The Raid star Iko Uwais and The Expendables 3 co-star Ronda Rousey attached. The prospects of this happening bode excellently for fans of both action actors with Uwais still brimming with popularity as the third film in the Raid franchise awaits its 2017/2018 arrival and Rousey maintaining her professional fighting career as well as acting.

That said, casting is still underway through press announcements and this week's latest trade reports include actor and Ted 2 star Mark Wahlberg who is in talks with fellow Lone Survivor cohort Berg and newly established STX Entertainment to star in the film as well as produce with producer Stephen Levinson. The film's script by executive producer Graham Roland will center on a CIA agent stationed in Indonesia tasked with transporting an informant from the center of the city to an awaiting getaway plane 22 miles away with a gauntlet of corrupt cops and heavily armed locals aimed at taking them out before they escape.

Reports from Variety and THR conflict as to who will play the aforementioned CIA agent character, although I reckon both Rousey's screen potential and Wahlberg's leading man status make them both contenders, or even simultaneous leads if possible. The two just recently appeared in Doug Ellin's Entourage which Wahlberg also produced while Wahlberg and Berg are currently completing their latest biographical disaster pic, Deepwater Horizon for a September 2016 release before moving onto their adaptation of The Six Billion Dollar Man for Universal Pictures.

Uwais himself is also set to appear with Frank Grillo in the Liam O'Donnell's upcoming sci-fi thriller, Beyond Skyline with a date to be announced, while online blurbs of his so-stated appearance in Star Wars: The Force Awakens remain yet to be confirmed.

Stay tuned for more info.