Update: Dan Stevens will lead Apostle, according to Variety.
Gareth Evans‘ years-long silence — filmmaking-wise; I don’t know what the guy does with his life — may be coming to an end, as a THR article informs us the Raid helmer’s collaborating with XYZ Films and Severn Screen on Apostle. A period thriller, it concerns “a mysterious man who travels to a remote island in search of his missing sister” who’s been “kidnapped by a religious cult, which is demanding a ransom for her return” — presumably leading to a bit of ass-kicking, or so I think when “it soon becomes clear that the cult will regret the day it baited this man.”
The Raid circa some very different time and place is a thrilling proposition, though it may be preferable to see Evans expand his canvas a bit. Apostle seems primed for just that shift.
Meanwhile, Deadline inform us Neil Jordan‘s next project will be The Trainer, in which Liam Neeson plays John Moore, an (surprise!) Irish horse trainer who “loses everything he cherishes and almost forgets to live.” Things, of course, take a turn when he meets “a teenage refugee, Nadya, who has fled her own horrors and now finds herself in a confounding new world,” and with whom he bonds over a race horse, Allabelle.
That sounds sappy as all get-out, but an earnest and distinctly Irish drama in the tradition of Jordan and Neeson’s Michael Collins may be just what we need. The involvement of Sully scribe Todd Komarnicki, who will be writing alongside James Villemaire and David Donohue, boosts prospects a good deal, too. HanWay films are supporting The Trainer, and cameras are expected to roll this summer.