Gerard Butler Has A New Action Movie On The Way
Here's the rundown on the new Gerard Butler action film.
This article is more than 2 years old
Gerard Butler is staking out Frank Grillo in Copshop, an upcoming action thriller about a con artist engaged in a high-stakes game of cat and mouse with the man hired to kill him. He takes refuge in a small-town police precinct, presumably turns himself in, to elude his would-be executioner, only to get a hardass rookie cop involved. Grillo plays Teddy, a con man, while Butler plays his tracker, Viddick, a professional assassin. Alexis Louder plays the compromised police officer. The Blacklist’s Joe Carnahan co-writes based on a story by Kurt McLeod and Ozark creator Mark Williams, and is set to direct. The entire movie takes place in a single night. McLeod teases, “It takes place in a single police station. There’s a number of characters involved that have goals that don’t quite match.” A financial advisor by day, this is McLeod’s first optioned screenplay. The Alberta writer penned the script in 2014 while trudging through law school. Copshop was first announced last year in September.
Gerard Butler and the rest of the cast shot the movie at Blackhall Studios in Atlanta, Georgia, with the rest filmed on location in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Principal photography began in October 2020. Production was briefly halted when three crew members contracted COVID-19, only to resume after three days. Filming ended less than a month later in November. Open Road Films is producing Copshop with parent company Raven Capital Management overseeing. Zero Gravity Management, Sculptor Media, G-BASE Productions, and WarParty Films are also closely involved.
Raven’s top guy, James Masciello, tells Deadline, “Anticipating the resurgence of cinema going post-pandemic, we made Copshop with theatrical audiences specifically in mind, delivering a big-time event experience with an original bent. Everyone is at the top of their game in Copshop and we can’t wait for audiences to strap in, and experience this ride for themselves.” Gerard Butler’s Copshop was given a September 17 release date to avoid competing with other films at the box office. The only other major release that day is Walt Becker’s live-action CGI Clifford the Big Red Dog. Others, like arthouse movies The Eyes of Tammy Faye (Searchlight) and Blue Bayou (Focus Features), share limited release.
Unlike other studios, which all closed shop when COVID-19 made everything unsafe, Open Road Films continued making films during the height of the pandemic. Gerard Butler’s Copshop is one of many projects that survived the quarantine era mostly unharmed. Executive producer Tom Ortenberg, who used to head Raven, elaborates: “Continuing to build off our successful pandemic era theatrical slate with Liam Neeson’s Honest Thief and The Marksman, all of us at Open Road Films are excited to continue bringing thrilling action films to theatres on the big screen, now with Copshop, starring Gerard Butler and Frank Grillo. We look forward to entertaining moviegoers this September with an exhilarating movie audiences will enjoy immensely.” Ortenberg, Matthew Sidari, Scott Putman, Robert Simonds, Adam Fogelson, and John Friedberg are executive producing.
An action movie stalwart, the ongoing pandemic hasn’t deterred Gerard Butler in the least. A 2012 surfing accident on the set of Chasing Mavericks couldn’t stop him from continuing to film, so he has certainly shown a penchant for resiliency. The Paisley native has made himself terrifically busy, carving out new thrillers with longtime collaborators and shooting several at once. Butler and director Ric Roman Waugh are reuniting on three films: Kandahar, about an undercover CIA agent running for his life in the Middle East; a sequel to smash hit disaster film Greenland; and the fourth installment in the Has Fallen series, Night Has Fallen.
Gerard Butler and co-star Morena Baccarin are reprising the role of the Garrittys in Greenland: Migration. Having survived extinction when a comet crash-landed on Earth in the last movie, Butler’s John Garrity and Baccarin’s Allison Garrity must leave the safety of their bunker and find a new home in Europe’s icy wastelands. On the other hand, the sequel to Angel Has Fallen has already finished filming. Sounds like overkill, but take it from us — Gerard Butler could star in every single action thriller in the next 10 years and you would never see us complaining.
