Jolie is Wanted

The Russian thriller NIGHT WATCH wasn’t exactly the blockbuster Fox thought it would be when it brought the film stateside. In fact it came and went without much of a blip. But promising director Timur Bekmambetov is taking another shot at success stateside. The director’s next film, WANTED based on the Mark Millar graphic novel, is set up at Universal with Angelina Jolie, Morgan Freeman and James McAvoy set to star. The film will follow McAvoy as a dweeby young guy who finds out his father was an assassin that was murdered. He is then recruited by the agency his father works for and trained himself to be an assassin. Freeman was originally slated to play the man who trains McAvoy but that role was rewritten specifically for Jolie. It’s unclear what role Freeman would be taking in this new version. [UPDATE – Production sources have checked in to inform me that Freeman’s part was not rewritten to fit Jolie. Freeman will be playing Sloan, the lead assassin, while Jolie will be playing Fox, a female assassin with the agency.] Jolie has a lot on her plate including the recently announced Clint Eastwood project THE CHANGELING as well as the Ayn Rand adaptation ATLAS SHRUGGED for Lionsgate. Filming is set to begin on WANTED this May. Jolie can be seen next in BEOWULF and A MIGHTY HEART both due later this year.