As we’ve previously reported, Channing Tatum’s upcoming action film White House Down has been fast-tracked for production beginning next month after it was revealed that a similar project, White House Taken, was being shopped around at Cannes. Starring Gerard Butler, White House Taken also tells the story of a secret service agent that fights a terrorist group – in this version it’s North Koreans – as it tries to capture the President.
Having already felt the mad C-Tates heat, Nu Image and Millenium are also feeling the pressure to speed things up, as the film, now named Olympus Has Fallen, isn’t slated to hit theaters until 2014. According to The Hollywood Reporter, the Antoine Fuqua-directed film’s cast is filling out quickly.
Oscar winner Melissa Leo and Rick Yune are joining the cast of Olympus Has Fallen, Nu Image/Millennium’s White House-set action thriller being directed by Antoine Fuqua.
The movie, which stars Gerard Butler, is in casting mode as it goes into production this week. Aaron Eckhart, Angela Bassett, Cole Hauser and Radha Mitchell already have been cast.
This is one of the lamest trends in Hollywood, when two studios compete to make the same exact movie in a hurry because they think that whichever film comes out first can declare supremacy. It happened with Volcano and Dante’s Peak, Tombstone and Wyatt Earp, The Illusionist and The Prestige, Saving Private Ryan and The Thin Red Line, and Philadelphia and Beethoven’s 2nd.
But this case obviously hits home the hardest, as we’ve been exclusively delivering you amazing White House Down storyboards in anticipation for what will clearly be Tatum’s most prolific blockbuster to date. Shame on Nu Image and Millennium, and shame on Butler. He should know better than to piggyback on C-Tates’ swag.