After years in development hell, with various directors and actors temporarily attached, Aaron Guzikowski’s script Prisoners finally got on the road to shooting earlier this year, when Incendies director Denis Villeneuve and actor Hugh Jackman signed on. The signs are still positive, as Melissa Leo is now aboard.
Prisoners will see Jackman as a small-town carpenter whose life is thrown into disarray when his young daughter and her best pal are kidnapped. Driven by vigilante rage and the sort of protective paternal spirit that Liam Neeson's Bryan Mills would heartily approve of, he in turn kidnaps the man he thinks is responsible.
So far, so Father Of The Year in his kid’s eyes. It’s a great plan, a most majestic plan with just one itty-bitty problem… He might have snatched an innocent man. Whoops! And his take-charge attitude has run him afoul of the big city detective investigating the case.
There’s no word on Leo's role (though we’d be happy to see her as a hard-bitten ‘tec going up against Jackman), but we do at least know that Villeneuve is planning to start shooting early next year for Alcon Entertainment.
Leo was last seen in Red State and has a load of movies scheduled to hit in the future, including Flight with Denzel Washington, Tom Cruise sci-fi pic Oblivion, Why Stop Now with Jesse Eisenberg and Lee Daniels’ The Butler.