Film News Roundup: Toby Kebbell Joins Vin Diesel’s ‘Bloodshot’ for Sony Pictures
By Dave McNary
LOS ANGELES (Variety.com) – In today’s film news roundup, Toby Kebbell joins Vin Diesel in “Bloodshot,” “Rockbarnes: The Emperor in You” gets a release, and Dana Brunetti unveils a new production company.
CASTING
will join Vin Diesel in “” for Sony Pictures in the role of Axe with principal photography starting in July.
Eiza Gonzalez, Michael Sheen, Sam Heughan, Talulah Riley, and Alex Hernandez also star. Dave Wilson of Blur Studios will direct and Neal H. Moritz is producing.
“Bloodshot,” first published in 1992, centers on a mortally wounded soldier with powers of regeneration and meta-morphing made possible through nano-machines in his bloodstream. “Bloodshot” was created by Kevin Van Hook, Don Perlin, and Bob Layton for Valiant. Over its comic-book run, “Bloodshot” totaled 110 issues with more than 7.5 million copies sold.
Kebbell’s credits include “The Fantastic Four,” the rebooted “Planet of the Apes” franchise, “Kong: Skull Island,” “Warcraft,” and “RocknRolla.” The news was first reported by the Wrap.
ACQUISITION
Freestyle Digital Media has secured rights for “Rockbarnes: The Emperor in You” from writer/director Ben McMillan, who makes his feature film debut with the title.
The comedy is styled as a mockumentary and will be released wide on demand
July 3
. Broken Lizard player Erik Stolhanske stars as the title character alongside Madisen Beaty, Chad Michael Collins, Joe Hursley, Erin Cardillo, Jack Plotnick, Ethan Phillips, Sonya Eddy, and James Grace.
Stolhanske portrays RockBarnes as he hires a movie crew to go on tour with him and record his greatness for the world to see. But when things go awry, and his world starts crumbling all around him, RockBarnes does what any egotistical anti-hero would do: he fires the director, holds the camera crew hostage, and goes about making an epic opus of grandiose delusions.
Producers are Britt George and Nicole Markel. Ed Ramans is the executive producer. The deal was negotiated by Freestyle’s Rachel Koehler, and Sally James of Greenberg Glusker on behalf of the filmmaking team.
PRODUCTION COMPANY
Dana Brunetti and finance executive Keegan Rosenberger have formed Cavalry Media, a Los Angeles-based media company focusing on the acquisition, development and production of feature films and scripted television.
Rosenberger, who previously headed strategy and corporate development at Relativity Media, serves as Cavalry’s chief executive officer. Brunetti, a producer on Netflix’s “House of Cards” and the “Fifty Shades” franchise, is chief content officer.
Brunetti headed Kevin Spacey’s Trigger Street and was nominated for Academy Awards for producing “The Social Network” and “Captain Phillips.” He served as Relativity’s president in 2016.
Cavalry will supply moderately priced programming for both traditional and new media distribution platforms. On the film side, it will specialize in projects with budgets between $40 million and $80 million.
Cavalry’s first project in development will be “Hispaniola,” a scripted television series based on “Columbus: His Enterprise: Exploding the Myth” by Hans Koning.
