Last fall, a remake of Iceland’s Oscar entry for last year, the thriller “Reykjavik-Rotterdam” by director Baltasar Kormakur, was announced with Mark Wahlberg producing and potentially starring and then….well, nothing. Then, last month Latino Review revealed that Kate Beckinsale had joined the project to take a starring role opposite Wahlberg.
Today, it looks like things are now going full steam forward as Universal has snapped up the film, approved its $30 million budget and turned on the the greenlight. Now titled “Contraband,” the film follows a security guard and former smuggler who, facing financial troubles, is roped back into his old life. The logline seems pretty dry, and we haven’t seen the original film, but Wahlberg is no slouch when it comes to picking projects so perhaps it’s a lot meatier than the one-liner suggests. Aaron Guzikowski, who penned the very hot Black List script “Prisoners,” is writing the screenplay.
No word yet on a production start date, but presumably sometime in 2011 once Beckinsale has wrapped up her duties on “Underworld 4.” But there will be plenty of Wahlberg in the upcoming months as the most recently released trailer for “The Fighter” indicates that he is a very strong contender for a Best Actor nomination at this year’s Oscars.