It went before the cameras in London last summer, and now here's our first look at Blitz, the Brit crime thriller starring Jason Statham and Paddy Considine.
You'll know the drill: on-the-edge copper takes the law into his own hands while dragging his reluctant new by-the-book partner with him. But this looks like solid, crunchy stuff, with the car chases and the fights and the guns you'd expect, under an old-school layer of British grit and grime. Plus, of course, the added pleasure of Statham filling the shoes of the guy bringing the right weapon to the wrong fight, and the always brilliant Considine as the other half of his double-act.
Blitz is based on the hard-boiled novel by Ken Bruen, and as you'll pick up from the trailer, involves a serial killer taking down policemen. The script is by Moon's Nathan Parker and the film, which is the first to be produced (rather than just distributed) by Lionsgate UK, is directed by Elliott Lester. In book-form, it's actually the third in a series. Is it possible that this might kick off a British Statham franchise to rival the Transporters and the Cranks? Will Detective Sergeant Tom Brant return?
Luke Evans, Aiden Gillen and David Morrissey co-star, and Blitz should arrive in the UK sometime next year, probably after Statham's The Mechanic, which is out on January 28.