Aubrey Plaza, Cary Elwes, and Bugzy Malone have just been cast alongside Jason Statham in Guy Ritchie's upcoming and untitled spy thriller. Miramax and STX Films recently brought the project to the virtual TIFF market under the name Five Eyes, with production looking to begin this week in Doha, Qatar, before moving on to Turkey. In the film, Statham will star as Orson Fortune, an MI6 guns-and-steel agent recruited by global intelligence alliance Five Eyes to track down and stop the sale of a deadly new weapons technology that threatens to disrupt the world order.
In addition to his role as the film's director, Ritchie will also produce alongside Bill Block for Miramax. Ivan Atkinson and Marn Davies are in charge of writing the screenplay, which Ritchie will then revise as cameras continue to roll. For those of you keeping score at home, this is yet another project shared by Miramax and Ritchie, after setting up films like The Gentlemen and Wrath of Man.
Plaza recently completed her work on director Lina Rosessler's Best Sellers. Starring Plaza as Lucy Stanbridge, the upcoming comedy tells the story of a cranky, retired author who reluctantly embarks on a final book tour to help out a young publisher. Michael Caine, Cary Elwes, Scott Speedman, and Ellen Wong also star.
As for Elwes, he's in the midst of filming Mary Lambert's A Castle for Christmas with Brook Shields. He's also set to play Kingsley Amis in David DuBos' Butterfly in the Typewriter, which focuses on a troubled author named John Kennedy Toole and his struggle to bring his comic masterpiece "A Confederacy of Dunces" to print.
Last but certainly not least is Bugzy Malone, the British rapper and actor who recently dropped a new, collaborative single with Chip titled "Notorious" on January 7. Malone played Ernie in Ritchie's 2019 crime-comedy The Gentlemen, and now he's back for more.
With filming poised to get underway this week, we're likely to know more about this film sooner rather than later. Stay tuned.