Daisy Ridley will eventually return to the “Star Wars” universe as Rey for Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy‘s “Star Wars: New Jedi Order” films, but until then, the actress needs to fill her calendar with other roles. And Ridley has some good ones on the way, including “Magpie,” which she recently finished shooting. Also on the way: “The Marsh King’s Daughter” and “Young Woman And The Sea,” which should both hit theaters this year.
But this actioner Anton has on the Cannes market with Ridley attached to star may have those three films beat. Deadline reports Ridley will star in director Martin Campbell‘s “Cleaner,” a “Die Hard“-esque action film set in London’s The Shard, the tallest skyscraper in Western Europe. Daisy Ridley as John McClane? Well, the comparison isn’t that far off, especially since Campbell’s two “James Bond” films, “Goldeneye” and “Casino Royale,” boast some of that franchise’s best action sequences.
“Cleaner” sees Ridley playing Joey Locke, an ex-soldier turned window cleaner, who must save attendees of an energy company’s gala in the building after an extremist takes the party hostage and threatens to blow everybody up. But, of course, there’s a couple of further issues to keep Locke from saving the day. One: Locke’s cleaning windows on the outside of the Shard, 90 stories up, when the hijacking happens. And two: there’s a couple corrupt members of the energy company who want to see everything go up in flames.
There’s no word yet on who will star in “Cleaner” opposite Ridley, but Anton wants to start shooting the film in late summer; as to whether Campbell gets to film anything in or on the outside of the Shard, that remains inconclusive. Anton’s producers Sebastian Raybaud and Callum Grant are no strangers to actioners, as they produced the Gerard Butler disaster film “Greenland” in 2020. But Raybaud and Callum want to find a buyer for world sales of “Cleaner” before Cannes ends. CAA Media Finance also co-handles the film for its domestic release.
Campbell has stayed in the action movie niche recently, with “The Protegé” and the Liam Neeson thriller “Memory” in the past couple of years. He also has a female soldier actioner “Dirty Angels” on the way too; that movie wrapped shooting in February. And the director sounds excited to make this film with Ridley. “”Cleaner” is a nail-biting thriller, unique and original in both its characters and its setting,” said Campbell in a press statement. “Much of the film takes place on the side of the Shard – hundreds of feet up in the air – and I want the audience to be up there with Joey in a stomach churning, vertiginous experience. There isn’t a more instinctive and powerful actress than Daisy right now to help us do just that. The majority of my movies have been thrillers, and “Cleaner” is one of the best I’ve ever read.”
So will “Cleaner” be a gritty character vehicle for Daisy Ridley, or some dead-eyed green screen spectacle that mimics being 90 stories up on a skyscraper? Hopefully the latter, as even though this film sounds a little derivative, it could be a solid role for Ridley. As for Anton, they have a couple of other films they’re shopping on the Croisette: “Breakout” with Arnold Scwarzenegger; and “Thirty Three,” with Mark Strong and Paula Beer. Unsurprisingly, they’re an actioner and a legal thriller, respectively.
More news from the Cannes market soon.