Ryan Reynolds Joins Costner’s Criminal

Signing up to change his mind

Ryan Reynolds Joins Costner's Criminal

by Owen Williams |
Published on

As previously reported, Kevin Costner is continuing his recent thriller kick, following Jack Ryan and 3 Days To Kill with Ariel Vroman's high-concept Criminal. Tommy Lee Jones and Gary Oldman are already set to co-star, and as if that team weren't already strong enough, Ryan Reynolds is now set to join them.

The film sees Costner playing a ruthless criminal (hence the title) who, rather than face the rest of his life in jail, volunteers for an experimental procedure to have the memories and skills of a murdered CIA field agent transferred into his own mind... with predictably unpredictable consquences.

Jones is playing a doctor - presumably with a dash of mad neuroscientist about him - while Oldman and Reynolds' roles have not yet been revealed. We're going to guess high-up CIA villain for Oldman and cameo-appearance dead agent for Reynolds (maybe it's the same character he played in Safe House!), but we're just playing hunches there.

It's sounding like EuropaCorp quality, but Luc Besson is nowhere to be seen: the producers are Chris Bender and JC Spink (We're The Millers, Burt Wonderstone), with Avi Lerner (The Expendables) among the exec-producers. Vroman previously directed The Iceman in 2010, and the Criminal screenplay is by Douglas Cook and David Weisberg (The Rock).

Criminal is currently in pre-production, but with the cast coming together expecting shooting shortly.

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