Just last
week Tambay reported (HERE) on the new Idris Elba thriller Bastille Day, which goes
into production later this summer in Paris. It also now co-stars  Adèle Exarchopoulos who got
raves in last year’s highly acclaimed French drama Blue is the Warmest Color.

To be directed by James Watkins
based on a script by Andrew Baldwin, the StudioCanal financed film deals with “a U.S.
agent (played by Elba) whose job is to make a young American man “disappear,”
after it is uncovered that he’s linked to a terrorist attack in Paris. However,
things change when the agent discovers that the man is actually innocent of the
crime, after several more terrorist attacks occur, while the man is supposed to
have “disappeared,” meaning someone else is responsible, and it’s the
agent’s job to sniff him/her out.“

Now it’s been
announced at Cannes that Focus Features has
picked up North American distribution rights for the film, while StudioCanal, also backing the film and handling international sales, will distribute
it in France, UK, Germany,
Australia, and New Zealand.

Peter Schlessel, who is CEO of Focus Features, said, after making the deal that, “We are all excited to be working with
James, these accomplished producers, and the incomparable Idris Elba on what
will surely be a thrill ride set in Paris, one of the greatest cities in the
world.“

Also on Elba’s slate is Disney’s live-action/CG hybrid movie adaptation of Rudyard Kipling’s The Jungle Book, which Jon Favreau is directing. He is also attached to star in Cary Fukunaga’s film adaptation of Nigerian author Uzodinma Iweala’s bestselling debut novel Beasts of No Nation. He has also reportedly been offered a lead role in Forest Whitaker’s adaptation of the best-selling novel The Shack, which he will both direct and star in.