People were pretty surprised when ANGEL HAS FALLEN, the third in Gerard Butler's Mike Banning series, topped the box office two weeks in a row last August, and emerged a surpringly fierce late-summer hit. After GEOSTORM and HUNTER KILLER, I think people assumed Butler's appeal was winding down but it turns out that he's still very bankable in action flicks, with DEN OF THIEVES being another surprise hit. So it's no surprise that Butler is re-teaming with his ANGEL HAS FALLEN director, Ric Roman Waugh, for another polically minded action flick, KANDAHAR, which is going into pre-sales at the upcoming Cannes Virtual Market.
According to a press release from the Capstone Group, who co-produces with Basil Iwanyk and Erica Lee's Thunder Road (SICARIO, JOHN WICK), in the film Butler stars as Tom Harris, an undercover CIA operative working in the Middle East. An intelligence leak dangerously exposes his classified mission and reveals his covert identity. Stuck in the heart of hostile territory, Harris and his translator must fight their way out of the desert to an extraction point in Kandahar while eluding the elite special forces hunting them.
By the way, Waugh and Butler actually have another film, GREENLAND, already wrapped and set for a theatrical release this summer, assuming it doesn't get pushed in the wake of COVID-19. Waugh's actually a very solid director, with his SHOT CALLER (for which I did a Best Movie You Never Saw), SNITCH, and FELON all well worth a watch.