Kiefer Sutherland will star alongside Al Pacino and Ever Anderson (Black Widow) in the new action thriller Father Joe, written and produced by Luc Besson (Leon: The Professional) and set in 1990s Manhattan.
“Father Joe” will begin filming in mid-October, with director Barthélémy Grossman (“Arthur: Fierce”) directing.
The film is being produced by LB Productions and EuropaCorp, whose credits include blockbuster action thrillers Taken (co-starring Liam Neeson), Lucy (co-starring Scarlett Johansson) and Leon: The Professional. The latter, in which Natalie Portman gave a breakthrough performance opposite Jean Reno in 1994, is also set in New York.
Sutherland, who is also attached to the project as a producer, stars in Father Joe as a man of faith who wages a bitter war against the city’s criminal underworld. Pacino plays a powerful mob boss whose empire clashes with Father Joe’s crusade. Anderson, a rising star from “Peter Pan & Wendy” and “Black Widow,” will play a young woman caught between danger and salvation under Joe’s guidance.
Director Sutherland said, “I’ve been a fan of Luc Besson going back to ‘Subway.’ As both a director and a writer, he has a unique ability to weave together drama and action without sacrificing either. I’m very excited about this opportunity to work with him as director Barthélémy Grossman, the writer of ‘Father Joe.’ I can’t wait to get started.”
Besson recently premiered Dracula: A Love Story, an ambitious gothic horror romance starring Caleb Landry Jones and Christoph Waltz. The film, which has sold worldwide, has performed well in several international markets including Latin America and Russia, grossing $9 million since its September 11 release, making it the country’s third-biggest international hit since 2022. It debuted in Greece last week, coming in second behind Paul Thomas Anderson’s One Battle After Another.
