Merrick again...

The bad ass Jason Isaacs (who was way way cool as the bad bad guy in the bland bland PATRIOT; he's also Malfoy in the HARRY POTTER films) will join John Cusak and Melissa George in STOPPING POWER, from a screenplay by Eric Red (the original HITCHER) and directed by Jan DeBont.

It's about a criminal (presumably Isaacs) who steals an RV with a young girl inside of it. He holds her hostage, forcing her dad (Cusak) to act as a decoy, thus abetting his getaway. George will play Cusak's girlfriend.

If memory serves, this is the project that's supposed to have...like...an hour long car chase/cat & mouse/pursuit sequence for its finale.

Ahhhhh.

Jan DeBont.

It's been a while. LARA CROFT TOMB RAIDER: THE CRADLE OF LIFE, was it?

You know...what can ya say?

As a cinematographer, he photographed some of my most cherished films (THE HUNT FOR RED OCTOBER and the first DIE HARD).

He also directed SPEED, which I loved the first time I saw it & much of it holds up surprisingly well today. He directed TWISTER, a great, big, sludgy dingleberry on the face of tornado movies (although any film that soaks Helen Hunt is worthy of at least a slight tip-of-the-hat). He directed THE HAUNTING, which just plain sucked (although it had Catherine Zeta-Jones in it, so...you know...)

He's been attached to some very promising sounding (and well titled) projects that never got off the ground: THE LAST SIX MILLION SECONDS - a thriller set against the return of Hong Kong to Chinese hands. GALILEO'S WAKE - a space adventure about a frantic rescue mission to save the passengers of a doomed space liner.

And he directed SPEED 2, bringing us what was perhaps the most audacious and nauseating use of the dreaded shakeycam to date.

All of this aside, it'll be strangely amusing to have DeBont back in play. I'll be following this one with great curiosity and scrutiny. Sounds like a fun part for Cusak. Isaacs rocks. And DeBont can be awesome. At least he managed it once.

We'll see.

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