GERARD BUTLER, SAM WORTHINGTON & MATTHEW McCONAUGHEY ENLIST TO STAR IN ACTIONER “THUNDER RUN”, TO BE DIRECTED BY SIMON WEST

LOS ANGELES – October 27, 2011 – Gerard Butler, Sam Worthington and Matthew McConaughey will star in Freedom Films’ upcoming action thriller “Thunder Run” with Simon West set to direct, announced Brian Presley, CEO of Freedom Films, who will produce alongside Carissa Buffel and Kevin Matusow of Freedom Films and Jib Polhemus of The Graphic Film Company.  Additional casting will begin in the next week.  Hyde Park International has signed on for international sales.

“Thunder Run,” is an all CG 3-D action thriller based on the novel “Thunder Run - The Armored Strike to Capture Baghdad,” by Pulitzer Prize-winning correspondent David Zucchino.   Adapting the story for the screen are Academy Award-winner Robert Port and Ken Nolan, screenwriter of “Black Hawk Down.” The Graphic Film Company will utilize proprietary facial-capture technology they used on West’s upcoming “Night of the Living Dead: Origins 3-D” along with the motion capture technology used in “AVATAR.”

“We are very excited to have attracted this outstanding level of acting and writing talent. ‘Thunder Run’ will be the first ever conventional war film made to utilize this revolutionary facial and motion capture technology and state of the art CG and 3D.  Simon and I have developed this project over the last five years so it will be nice to see it come alive,” commented Presley.

“Thunder Run” is the untold story of the dangerous and bloody capture of Baghdad by American Forces at the onset of the Iraq War.   In April 2003, three battalions and fewer than a thousand men launched a violent thrust of tanks and Bradley Fighting Vehicles into the heart of a city of five million, igniting a three-day blitzkrieg, which military professionals often refer to as a lightning strike, or “thunder run.” In telling the story of the surprise assault on Baghdad- one of the most decisive battles in recent American combat history—this movie paints the harrowing picture of the soldiers on the front lines and the realities of modern warfare.

Freedom Films is represented by Jay Cohen of the Gersh Agency.   CAA represents West, Butler, Worthington, and McConaughey.

TEXAS KILLING FIELDS OPENS TODAY!

Although Sam Worthington found the blockbuster role of a lifetime in Avatar, Worthington has since diversified his acting resume by taking on projects grounded in reality. The latest project for Sam Worthing is Texas Killing Fields, which opens in select theaters on October 14, in which Worthington plays a homicide detective in a small Texas town with his New York City partner as they track a serial killer who dumps his victims in a nearby marsh called “The Killing Fields.”

Inspired by true events, Texas Killing Fields follows Sam Worthington as Detective Souder and Jeffrey Dean Morgan as Detective Heigh who find themselves the target of the serial killer murderer after the killer changes the game and begins hunting the detectives, teasing them with possible clues at the crime scenes while always remaining one step ahead. When familiar local girl goes missing, the detectives give it their all to catch the killer before it’s too late.

Ahead of the theatrical release of Texas Killing Fields, TheDeadbolt went one-on-one with Sam Worthington to learn more about how he prepared for the role, what surprised him about the real “Killing Fields,” the real location in Texas, and how Sam Worthington pushes himself as an actor after the success of Avatar.

THE DEADBOLT: Can you talk about working with Jessica [Chastain] and how she brings out the best in you as an actor?

SAM WORTHINGTON: Well, she’s just completely immersive as an actress. She kind of finds her way into a character from the outside in. That’s how I see it. I kind of work from the inside out, so we compliment each other’s style. I think when you work with her, because she’s so prepared, she forces you to step up to the mark. Also, I get on with her as a human being [laughs], as a girl. That’s always nice sometimes because people can get lost in the art form and the craft to forget that it’s really just a job and you’re finished at the end of the day. As friends, we kind of have a trust with each other.

THE DEADBOLT: When you started to learn more about the highway and fields, what surprised you most about the real events?

WORTHINGTON: I went out there with the characters we play, they’re all real. I went to Galveston myself and walked around and the place does have a scary atmosphere to it. Then when I went with the cop, Mike [Souder], we actually went out to where he found several of the bodies and several of the dump sites. What you realize most is how easy it is if you were going to dump a body there. It’s so remote. It’s so removed and disturbing that you can see why this place has been picked by so many horrible people and the effect that had on Mike.

That was one of the reasons that helped me to get into his headspace. But also what I found about that place was that there is still a fearful factor about it. People do travel along that highway all of the time between work and they live near it. There is a forboding sense of fear along it.

THE DEADBOLT: What appealed to you most about what Texas Killing Fields was trying to say as a whole?

WORTHINGTON: It’s the fact that I never knew about these events. We’re talking about tens of girls who’ve gone missing. The more I talked to the cops, and the more they told me about the bodies they found and the families that lost people, the more I went, “Well, if we do it right, someone might remember something.”

That’s what stuck with me about the story. That’s what stuck with me when talking to Don [Ferrarone], the writer. Talking to Mike and Brian [Heigh], the cops, they believe if you’re going to do a story like this, you don’t do it glib. You try to tell a tale that reflects some of the things they went through.

THE DEADBOLT: After doing smaller movies following Avatar, how do you push yourself to get the best as compared to before you went into Avatar?

WORTHINGTON: I’ve always just looked at it as one job at a time. That’s all you really can do. You try to do the best you can in each one. You find that you go leaps and bounds in the characters you achieve. That’s the way I’ve always looked at it. You make movies for an audience and you give them the best of your ability at that time.

So how I go about pushing myself is to keep choosing directors or material that I find fascinating, that I find interesting and I would go and pay $16 at the movies to see. In that case then I can keep pushing myself and making myself better. Then you keep going and going. If Jim [Cameron] calls and my caliber isn’t up to the same level as when I started Avatar, he’ll kick my butt.

If I keep going, when we go to do Avatar 2, he’ll go “Fuck! You’ve improved.” You’re doing this or that or whatever number of things you do to improve on your craft, then he’ll be happy and I’ll be ecstatic. That’s it. You just keep picking projects that will keep pushing yourself as a craftsman.

SOURCE