You might remember that Brad Pitt and James Gray were set to team up for “The Lost City Of Z,” an adventure tale excitingly billed as a “Lawrence Of Arabia”-style epic, and naturally attracted buyers and massive interest around the world. But Paramount pulled the plug late last year with rumors that the studio and Gray couldn’t come to an agreement on pay. Pitt moved on to “Cogan’s Trade” and it seemed that was it. But it looks like the pair have found something else to team up on.
Earlier this year, Gray signed on direct the assassin thriller “The Gray Man,” and he had a very unique approach to what seems on the surface to be a very ordinary run through genre material. Based on the book by Mark Greaney and penned by Adam Cozad (who also wrote the upcoming Jack Ryan reboot for Paramount), the film follows a former CIA operative-turned ultimate assassin — the part Pitt is now lining up to play — who must fight his way across Europe, and past special forces teams from around the world in order to save the life of his handler and the handler’s family after he is targeted by a powerful multinational corporation. You’ve seen that movie before right? Well, not like this. Gray plans to shoot the film from the perspective of the assassin, citing the excellent car chase sequence from “We Own The Night” as an example of what audiences can expect from the film. “Almost every shot was from Joaquin’s point of view, inside that car, and I want to make a whole movie with that POV,” Gray said in January. So yeah, that’s awesome. Gray also stressed his film would be a far cry from the run-and-gun documentary vibe of Paul Greengrass‘ Bourne films.
The project is set up over at 20th Century Fox with New Regency also on board, though there’s no word yet on when this will roll. However, we guess this means the period drama “Low Life,” announced in May with Joaquin Phoenix, Marion Cotillard and Jeremy Renner set to star, is on hold for now (and considering all those stars are busy with other projects, it didn’t seem like it was close to shooting anyway). As for Pitt, he’s currently shooting “World War Z” but has an open calendar after that so we could see this rolling at the end of 2011 or early next year. [Variety]