David S. Goyer Will Direct Conspiratorial Thriller The Breach For Lionsgate
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One of the most hit-or-miss personalities in Hollywood, writer/director David S. Goyer has a penchant for balancing hugely popular and successful blockbusters with projects that…aren’t hugely popular or successful. As we wait and see what his influence will bring to the clusterfuck that is Zack Snyder’s Batman/Superman Movie Sequel Event Thing, Goyer is lining up his next directorial effort, an adaptation of Patrick Lee’s 2009 thriller novel The Breach. Without any superheroes, vampires, or ghosts, this could be a side of the filmmaker that no one has ever seen before. Oh wait, he also co-created ABC’s dismal post-Lost mystery series FlashForward, so we’ve almost definitely seen this side of him.
Goyer and producer Lorenzo di Bonaventura optioned and developed the novel in 2012, only taking it to studios last week. And though Warner Bros., Fox, Relativity, and Millennium all showed interest, Lionsgate came out with the rights, in part because they’re interested in getting this project made sooner rather than later. The screenplay is being written by Justin Rhodes, who last co-wrote the script for Stephen Gyllenhaal’s comedy Grassroots with Jason Biggs. We’re hoping for something a little more exciting than that one.
The Breach follows ex-cop Travis Chase, just released from prison and attempting to live a quiet life in the Alaskan wilderness. Things take an inevitable turn for the worse whenever he finds a crashed airplane, with the First Lady as one of the dead bodies around the scene. His keen skills lead him to a hostage situation, which then leads him to a baffling world of conspiracies, badass enemies, alien technology, and a plot to destroy the world as we know it. Should this film be a success, it won’t be surprising if Lionsgate also decides to take on Lee’s Breach sequels, 2010’s Ghost Country and 2011’s Deep Sky.
Goyer, whose Starz series Da Vinci’s Demons is still going strong, is also working on NBC’s pilot for Constantine, so there’s a good chance we won’t be hearing anything more about The Breach for another few months. For now, we can only ponder who among Hollywood’s chiseled elite would step up to play the Chase role. Would David Duchovny like to come back to conspiratorial alien-ish fiction? Or perhaps a more marquee name like Channing Tatum? Tell us who you think would nail this character after taking a peek at the novel’s trailer below.
