A Good Day to Die Hard and Max Payne director John Moore is taking on another action film, only this one will be set in Africa. The Englishman is based on a book by former SAS soldier Will Scully called Once a Pilgrim: The Story of One Man’s Courage Under Rebel Fire that recounts Scully’s experiences with his former regiment, the “Pilgrims,” while evacuating civilians during a military coup in Sierra Leone. The film definitely looks as though it will have a more dramatic, moving tone than the fifth installment of the Bruce Willis-starred Die Hard series, probably shooting more for the Behind Enemy Lines side of Moore’s portfolio. Moore has commented to Variety about the upcoming film saying, “The Englishman is one of those rare stories, the details and circumstance of which are so bizarre and mesmerizing, it created a compulsion in us to tell it.”
The script was adapted by Terminator 2′s William Wisher and Foresight Unlimited and Envision Entertainment are getting the funds for the project, but there is no news yet of who could possibly be joining the cast.
Hollywood has ventured to Sierra Leone, a tiny, diamond-rich country on Africa’s west coast, before, most notably in Blood Diamond, which starred Leonardo DiCaprio, Djimon Hounsou, and Jennifer Connelly.