Gerard Butler Defends Iconic American Landmark In New Action Thriller
Hollywood action star, Gerard Butler, known for his roles in such films as 300 and Olympus Has Fallen, is once again taking on the hero role as the main star of the new action comedy thriller film Empire State.
Butler And Christian Gudegast
The upcoming action thriller will reunite Gerard Butler and Christian Gudegast, director of Den of Thieves. The action crime drama from 2018 was Gudegast’s directorial debut, and since then Christian and Butler worked on the sequel Den of Thieves 2: Pantera, scheduled to premiere in September .
Christian Gudegast also wrote the screenplay for Gerard Butler’s action thriller London Has Fallen in 2016, which also starred Aaron Eckhart and Morgan Freeman and grossed over $200 million at the box office.
Defending The Empire State Building
In the latest action flick, Gerard Butler will defend one of New York City’s iconic landmarks, the Empire State Building, as a Navy SEAL-turned-FDNY firefighter Rhett. His task would be to work with NYPD tactical officer Dani as they try to stop a vengeance-seeking military contractor from destroying the Empire State Building.
The thing is that Dani and Butler’s character are in a relationship that has seen its better days. However, they need to put their differences aside if they want to rescue hostages and save the building.
This won’t be the first time that the Empire State Building faced destruction on the silver screen. King Kong famously scaled it in 1933, and it faced destruction by aliens in Independence Day.
The Crew Behind The Scenes
The screenplay for the upcoming action film is written by S. Craig Zahler (Bone Tomahawk), and Brian Tucker (Secret Invasion). According to the reports, Butler and his production partner Alan Siegel will produce the film through their production company G-Base, alongside Marc Butan from MadRiver. Moreover, Quirin Berg and Alexander Janssen from Leonine Studios are billed as executive producers.
CAA Media Finance will handle the domestic rights, while The Veterans is launching international sales at Cannes.
No News On The Release
For now, there is no information on when Gerard Butler will begin his shooting schedule on Empire State, and the cast is yet to be decided.
On the other hand, Gerard Butler has just finished the production of Universal Pictures’ live-action adaptation of How To Train Your Dragon and is currently filming Greenland: Migration, the sequel to Ric Roman Waugh’s apocalyptic action movie.
Butler’s Other Work
In addition to the career-making role of King Leonidas in 300, Gerard Butler has worked on a number of popular films. Back in 2004, he portrayed The Phantom in the musical The Phanom of the Opera, while in 2009 he was Clyde Shelton in the action film Law Abiding Citizen, starring Jamie Fox and Leslie Bibb.
Most recently, Gerard Butler was seen as the star of the thriller drama Kandahar, directed by Ric Roman Waugh, with Tom Rhys Harries and Farhad Bagheri as co-stars.
