Michael Mann has never been the most prolific filmmaker, but it’s rare during the course of his career that he’s taken any more than three years between films. We assume that it is largely down to the ill-fated HBO show “Luck” that Mann hasn’t had a film in cinemas since “Public Enemies” in 2009, but it looks like we won’t be waiting too much longer with his currently untitled cyber theft thriller set to go in front of cameras in China next month.
Chris Hemsworth is already on board to star in the film that Mann co-wrote with Morgan Davis Foehl. Not much is known about the specifics of the movie, but talk was that the film will follow a Balkan hacker operating out of South Asia who has an American and Chinese task force on his tail. Well, we haven’t learned much more about the plot or Hemsworth’s character, even though production is fast approaching, but what we do know is that Viola Davis is likely to appear as an FBI agent in the film.
Davis, a Tony-winner and twice Oscar nominee (for “Doubt” and “The Help”) was last seen on the big screen in “Beautiful Creatures” and will show up in another potential young adult franchise next, “Ender’s Game.” She’s also got “The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby: His,” “The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby: Hers” and “Prisoners” due later this year, and working with Michael Mann isn’t a bad way to follow those up. Last we heard, Mann was looking at a lot of Chinese actors to join the film, which makes sense given the setting, so we’d expect to get confirmation on some of those roles as the film moves closer to production. [Deadline]