Back in January, it was announced that Marc Forster (“The Kite Runner,” “Quantum of Solace”) and Gerard Butler were teaming up for “Machine Gun Preacher,” based on the true story of Sam Childers (Butler), a former drug dealing biker who became a missionary and preacher, and founded an orphanage in the Sudan and a militia to protect the children there. Little else was heard about the project, but it seems much has been happening behind the scenes.
Deadline reports the film is now set to shoot this summer, and casting is coming into place. Michelle Monaghan is confirmed to be joining the film. She will play “Childers’ wife, Lynn, who cleaned up her own demons while Childers did a stretch behind bars, and struggled to keep their family together in Detroit while he went to Africa” to establish the orphanage. Piquing our interest is news that the always awesome Michael Shannon is in talks to join the cast “playing a close friend of Childers who stayed with his wife while he was away in Africa.” That role is apparently central to the plot.
The script comes from playwright Jason Keller who adapted Childers’ memoir Another Man’s War: The True Story of One Man’s Battle to Save Children in the Sudan. Lionsgate has acquired the domestic distribution rights for the film that will show a different side to Butler who, until now, has been reduced to yelling a lot in action films or playing a charming asshole in lame rom-coms.