EXCLUSIVE: Black Bear and BlockFilm — the new production label of former Miramax boss Bill Block — are set to heat up the AFM market some more today with action movie Levon’s Trade, which will star Jason Statham (Fast & Furious franchise) and be directed by David Ayer (Suicide Squad) from a screenplay adapted by Sylvester Stallone (Creed).
The project marks Stallone’s first screenplay since Rambo: Last Blood in 2019 and Creed II in 2018. The screen icon, who was famously Oscar-nominated for his Rocky screenplay in 1977, has adapted Levon’s Trade from the novel of the same name by comic author Chuck Dixon. The book is the first of eleven in the popular Levon Cade thriller series. Stallone’s Balboa Productions had previously developed the project as a TV series.
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The movie will chart how Levon Cade (Statham) left his “profession” behind him to go ‘straight’ and work in construction. He wants to live a simple life and be a good father to his daughter. But when his boss’s teenage daughter Jenny vanishes, he’s called upon to re-employ the skills that made him a legendary figure in the shadowy world of black ops. His hunt for the missing college student takes him deep into the heart of a sinister criminal conspiracy creating a chain reaction that will threaten his new way of life.
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The team is lining up a March 2024 shoot in London.
David Ayer and Chris Long (who also teamed with Statham and Block on upcoming action movie The Beekeeper) will produce for Cedar Park Entertainment, alongside Statham for Punch Palace Productions (The Beekeeper), Stallone for Balboa Productions, John Friedberg (Ferrari) for Black Bear and Bill Block (David Gordon Green’s Halloween franchise) for BlockFilm. Statham was attached to the project pre-strike.
Producer Bill Block, who in a shock move exited Miramax earlier this month, said: “I am thrilled to be reuniting with some of my most talented and longstanding partners on Levon’s Trade. I first worked with David Ayer on Fury and it was immediately clear that he is a director at the very top of his game. Jason and I have worked together on a number of films, and most recently the three of us collaborated on The Beekeeper. Levon’s Trade is going to be another spectacular action movie and I’m confident we’ve assembled the dream team to bring the first novel in this celebrated series to the big screen.”
Black Bear’s AFM slate also includes Taron Egerton crime thriller, She Rides Shotgun; Olivia Colman and Dev Patel’s twisted romance, Wicker; The Nun director Corin Hardy’s new genre film Whistle, starring Dafne Keen; and Sing Sing, starring Colman Domingo, which A24 picked up for U.S. rights at TIFF this year.
Jason Statham is repped by Patrick Knapp at GGSSC, David Ayer is repped be WME and David Weber, and Sylvester Stallone is repped by CAA and Robert Lange.