Pierre Morel who is known for his impressive work directing “Taken” has started work on another action thriller movie, “The Blacksmith”. He is working alongside AGC Studios to create the actioner and the movie is set to feature actor/singer Nick Jonas as the lead character. In Morel’s words, Nick Jonas will feature as a “Very modern and updated” MacGyver.
The film which is scheduled to start production in September will see Jonas portray Wes Loomis in the movie. Wes Loomis is a weapons expert and is the go-to man for the intelligence community. However, a series of bad events forces him to go into hiding. Acquiring the help of Noelle Hazlitt, a young CIA analyst, Wes then seeks out his mentor, Mather, who is a retired blacksmith in the hopes of finding answers to the bad events that happened to him.
On why he is excited about directing the film, Morel explained, “I’m a James Bond fan and my big question as a kid was, what would it be like if Q had to do the mission himself? Since our hero in ‘The Blacksmith’ is a modern Q, I was blown away. This (is a) guy who can invent stuff and make up every device you can imagine…but is not a hero and isn’t supposed to be in the field. All of a sudden, he is thrown into mayhem and has to deal with the situation, [but] with all this knowledge and not with his muscles. That was key to my interest.” He also said “The Blacksmith” will rely more on CGI effects than his previous feature films saying, “It is in today’s world, but using devices that don’t exist. The idea is to make the scope bigger than I usually do, which will allow for bigger effects, destruction and devastation.”
Morel has directed some impressive action thrillers which gave him the required power to land the job. He has to his directing credits “Taken” which featured Liam Neeson, “The Gunman” with Idris Elba starring as the leads character and Jennifer Garner’s Peppermint to mention but a few.
“The Blacksmith” which will be financed and produced by AGC studios will have its production in Toronto. While some of the roles are yet to be cast, Mather is set to be played by Laurence Fishburne.
