Michael Shannon And Jamie Chung Join David Koepp's Premium Rush
Michael Shannon (The Runaways, Jonah Hex) and Jamie Chung are in talks to join Joseph Gordon-Levitt in David Koepp's on-the-run chase thriller Premium Rush.
The story follows a 20-something-year-old bike messenger who somehow gets involved in a chase across New York City. And we're not just talking about a little chase but big budget William Friedkin-style action sequences. Apparently a dirty cop is "desperate to get his hands" on an envelope the messenger received from Columbia University.
THR reports that Shannon would play the villain, "a deceptively affable cop with a violent temper", and Chung would play Levitt's ex-girlfriend, "a fellow daredevil bike messenger who helps him outwit the cop. "Previously:
David Koepp is best known as one of Hollywood's highest paid screenwriters (and one of Spielberg's scribes). His screenwriting credits include everything from Toy Soldiers, Jurassic Park, and Carlito's Way, to Panic Room, Spider-Man, War of the Worlds and Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.
For the last decade he's been trying to make the transition into feature film directing. He made his debut with the promising Stir of Echoes, but has since followed up with some lackluster efforts, the 2004 Stephen King adaptation Secret Window and the 2008 Ricky Gervais supernatural romantic comedy Ghost Town. Honestly, I think Koepp is a much better screenwriter than he is a filmmaker, and that's not saying much considering the abundance of lackluster screenplays he's been involved with in the last 10-12 years. With that kind of intro, you must be really interested in his next directorial effort (yes, that was sarcasm).
As much as I'm not a fan of Koepp's filmmaking choices thus far, I'm always game for another chase movie, especially a film with a budget.
Koepp's Premium Rush is penned by his frequent screenwriting collaborator John Kamps. Aside from working with Koepp on Ghost Town and Zathura, he also wrote Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: The Movie. Yup, no snarky commentary needed.