Prolific action and dramatic actor Michael Peña (The Martian) has been cast in the lead role for the upcoming action movie The Worker, according to The Hollywood Reporter. To be directed by veteran action stunt coordinator and unit director Dan Bradley (the Bourne franchise), the film is being tagged as a Taken-meets-Bourne action film and will be shopped around to distributors at the upcoming Berlin International Film Festival (Berlinale).
The story will follow a Mexican special ops agent working to take down local drug cartels. When his identity is made, he is forced to leave the country with his family and enter witness protection in Los Angeles. There, he becomes a laborer and attempts to assume a normal life. When the cartels kidnap his family, however, he is forced to use his “unique set of skills” to save them and take revenge.
Bradley has been on the action circuit for over three decades, with his major credits coming from the Bourne series and the Tobey Maguire Spider-Man films. He is a big name within the action industry and his directorial debut will likely provide a huge selling point once the project reaches Berlin. Jeremy Renner‘s (The Bourne Legacy) banner The Combine is producing with Content Media’s Tom Butterfield.
Michael Peña has been an omnipresent actor in big drama and action film as-of-late, appearing in Gangster Squad, American Hustle, Cesar Chavez, Fury, The Martian, and Ant-Man just within the past few years. He is a clear go-to actor in Hollywood and it was only a matter of time before he headlined his very own action flick. Coming up, he will be appearing in War on Everyone alongside Alexander Skarsgard (Diary of a Teenage Girl), in Collateral Beauty with Will Smith, and in the adaptation of the television show CHiPS, written and directed by actor Dax Shepard (TV’s Parenthood).
We will have more on The Worker as it develops further.