Yahoo News Walk Like A Duck & Renegade Entertainment Strike Two-Picture Deal; ‘Renfield’ Stunt Coordinator Chris Brewster Tapped To Helm First Feature, ‘Relentless’
EXCLUSIVE: Walk Like A Duck Entertainment and Renegade Entertainment have entered into a two-picture financing and co-production deal, tapping veteran second unit director, stunt choreographer and fight coordinator Chris Brewster as the director for the first film under the deal, titled Relentless. The deal follows WLAD’s participation in Renegade’s recently released features Dig and Slayers, starring Renegade principal Thomas Jane.
Relentless is a Taken-style action-thriller in which Jane will play Charlie Thorne, a former U.S. Army Green Beret living off the grid who is forced back into action when smugglers steal his boat, leaving him for dead and attempting to kill a young girl he has befriended. In the cross-fire of warring crime gangs, Thorne re-enters battle, fighting to rescue the young girl, while combatting his own internal demons.
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Chuck Hustmyre wrote the film, which is currently casting. Production is scheduled to kick off in early 2023, with Paradigm repping North American rights.
“We are thrilled to partner with Renegade on a multi-picture deal, starting with Relentless to kick off our 2023 slate. We’re excited to have Chris bringing his years of action experience and unique vision to the picture,” said WLAD co-CEOs Jason Armstrong and Rob Goodrich. “Thomas Jane and Courtney Lauren Penn’s commitment to authenticity in their creative goals while also seeking opportunities to grow as a company are among many of the reasons we felt like this would be an organic fit for Walk Like A Duck.”
“Renegade has a wonderful working relationship with Rob and Jason at Walk Like A Duck. Their commitment to supporting independent film is rare and special,” said Renegade’s Penn. “Thomas and I have long been fans of Chris Brewster’s exceptional work, and we are excited for audiences to experience Chris’s ability to deliver a powerful emotional story through exceptional action-design and filmmaking. Relentless is a story of pursuit, and we are thrilled to launch this labor of love with Chris and with our partners Walk Like A Duck.”
Brewster is a SAG and Taurus World Stunt Award winner who most recently contributed to the action of Warner Bros.’ Dwayne Johnson starrer Black Adam as both Fight Coordinator and Splinter Unit Stunt Coordinator. Other notable projects on his resume include Marvel’s Black Panther, Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Daredevil and Ant-Man and the Wasp, to name just a few. His work will next be seen in Universal’s horror-comedy Renfield, starring Nicolas Cage, Nicholas Hoult and Awkwafina, for which he served as second unit director.
Walk Like A Duck Entertainment is a production company co-founded by Armstrong and Goodrich that has recently completed production on films including Andy Armstrong’s Squealers; K. Asher Levin’s Slayers starring Abigail Breslin, Malin Akerman and Jane; Levin’s Dig starring Jane, Emile Hirsch and Liana Liberato; Skelly starring Brian Cox, Torrey Devitto and John Palladino; and Salvation with Jane, Claire Forlani, Skeet Ulrich, Theo Rossi and Ashley Moore. The company has also acquired the life rights of John Fairfax, an adventurer who crossed both the Atlantic and the Pacific Oceans in a rowboat, and is developing a project on him alongside his widow, Tiffany Fairfax.
Jane and Penn launched Renegade Entertainment in 2019, with the company this year producing and releasing its first scripted series Troppo, based on the bestselling novel by Candice Fox, via Amazon Frevee. The company currently has the horror-comedy Slayers in theaters, having recently released Dig. Other recent features from the company include Murder at Yellowstone City, starring Jane and Gabriel Byrne, and The Last Son, starring Jane, Sam Worthington and Colson Baker. It’s currently in production on the Pretty Boy Floyd biopic Good Side of a Bad Man and counts the comic series The Lycan, a sequel to 2009 neo-noir Give ’em Hell Malone and a series based on Candice Fox’s novel Gathering Dark among its projects in development.
Paradigm brokered the deal between Renegade Entertainment and Walk Like A Duck, as the rep for both companies as well as Jane. Brewster is with CAA.
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