With his feature career taking off as one of Variety’s 10 Actors to Watch in 2012, “Arbitrage” star Nate Parker is boarding a flight to “Non-Stop,” Jaume Collet-Serra’s airplane thriller starring Liam Neeson that will mark Silver Pictures’ first film under its new distribution deal with Universal Pictures.
Neeson will play a federal air marshal who matches wits with an embittered American terrorist threatening to kill a fellow passenger every 20 minutes unless the protag kills himself. Parker will co-star as a passenger who helps Neeson solve the mystery.
Joel Silver is producing for Silver Pictures along with Andrew Rona and Alex Heineman. StudioCanal is financing the project and will handle international distribution, with Universal releasing stateside. John Richardson and Chris Roach wrote the script on spec, and production will begin in the coming weeks in Gotham.
Neeson previously worked with Collet-Serra and Silver on another mid-budget thriller, WB’s “Unknown,” which grossed $130 million worldwide. Neeson currently toplines “Taken 2,” which opens today and is projected to gross north of $40 million this weekend.
Parker currently stars opposite Richard Gere in “Arbitrage,” and will soon reteam with his “Red Hook Summer” helmer Spike Lee for Good Universe’s remake of the classic Korean revenge thriller “Oldboy.” The “Red Tails” thesp has also wrapped David Lowery’s indie “Ain’t Them Bodies Saints,” which stars Rooney Mara, Casey Affleck and Ben Foster.
Parker is repped by WME, ROAR and Hirsch Wallerstein.
