Fans of the Boy Who Lived, you'd best steel yourselves, because Daniel Radcliffe is back, and so is his gloriously scruffy beard in a first look image from the upcoming thriller ESCAPE FROM PRETORIA. Arclight Films and the South Australian Film Corp unveiled the photo this afternoon, which features Radcliffe (the HARRY POTTER franchise, HORNS) and Australian actor Daniel Webber (THE DIRT, THE PUNISHER) as political prisoners and freedom fighters Tim Jenkin and Stephen Lee. In the image (pictured above), we can see Jenkin and Lee handcuffed and staring intently at one another, presumably dismayed upon landing themselves in the back of a fortified police transport.
Based on a true story, ESCAPE FROM PRETORIA follows Jenkin and Lee, two white South African twenty-somethings who were branded ‘terrorists’ and imprisoned in 1978 for their involvement in covert anti-apartheid operations for the ANC (African National Congress).
Incarcerated in Pretoria Maximum Security Prison, Jenkin and Lee – joined by a fellow inmate – decide to send the regime a clear message and escape. After months of meticulous surveillance, breath-taking ingenuity, and in a race against time as the authorities strengthen the prison security defenses, the group craft wooden keys for each of the ten steel doors between them and freedom.
Based on Tim Jenkin's autobiography Inside Out: Escape from Pretoria Prison, the project will serve as Francis Annan's directorial debut from the screenplay he co-wrote with L.H. Adams.
“We are delighted to be collaborating with the brilliant team at the SAFC and MEP Capital, and the producers at BeaglePug and Footprint Films,” Arclight Chairman Gary Hamilton said today. “They are fantastic partners to bring this extraordinary tale to life and we look forward to seeing this incredible film in cinemas around the world very soon.”
If ESCAPE FROM PRETORIA sounds like another feather in Radcliffe's cap, that's because it is. Too often do kid actors slip through the Hollywood cracks, amounting to nothing more than a source of fleeting nostalgia or Wal-Mart bargin bin fodder. Not Radcliffe, though. He's done well for himself since emerging from beneath the Dursley's staircase, and it should be interesting to see what he can bring to the table for Annan's upcoming thriller.