Open Road and STX International have announced the production of "Copshop". The film will star Gerard Butler ("Fallen" franchise," "Greenland," "Den of Thieves") and Frank Grillo ("Captain America" and "Purge" franchises, "Kingdom", "FightWorld", "Wheelman"). The Joe Carnahan ("The Grey", Smokin' Aces" "The A-Team") directed action/thriller will be released theatrically in the U.S. by Open Road Films while STXinternational will handle foreign distribution and release directly in the UK and Ireland.
In "Copshop", a small-town police station becomes the unlikely battleground between a professional hitman (Butler), a smart rookie female cop, and a double-crossing con man (Grillo), who seeks refuge behind bars with no place left to run.
The film will begin principal photography in October, with shooting to take place in Georgia and New Mexico. The original screenplay was written by Kurt McLeod, with the most recent draft written by Joe Carnahan.
Mark Williams and Tai Duncan of Zero Gravity Management are producing the film alongside Warren Goz and Eric Gold of Sculptor Media, Butler and Alan Siegel's G-BASE Productions, and Carnahan and Grillo through their WarParty Films production banner. Executive producers are James Masciello, Matthew Sidari, and Tom Ortenberg for Open Road Films.
Raven Capital Management, which acquired Open Road Films in 2018 and recently relaunched the theatrical film distributor with former head Tom Ortenberg at the helm, developed "Copshop" in partnership with Sculptor and Zero Gravity, and is fully financing the film. CAA Media Finance arranged the project's financing and domestic distribution deal.
Grillo and Carnahan said, "WarParty is beyond excited to be teaming with Raven, Open Road, STX and G-BASE on ‘Copshop'. We feel that this is a movie that can play big globally but be made sensibly and we are always looking for this type of ‘elevated genre' where the writing really drives the action and the drama. We also couldn't be happier to have someone with the box-office power of Gerard Butler as our partner in crime on this film."
Said Warren Goz, "We have been working with Raven for almost a decade to create an infrastructure that has come to fruition in the last couple of years and is now further manifesting itself with our second in-house development title to go to production. We are extremely proud of this accomplishment and we have many more in the pipeline."
"Our business is really all about building complementary partnerships," said James Masciello. "'Copshop' perfectly demonstrates this concept. Our production, finance, and studio platform, including everything from in-house development to worldwide theatrical release capability enable us to bring value to best in class creative partners, such as all of those we are working together with on ‘Cop Shop'. Separately, we are thrilled to be partnering with STX on the international distribution of the film, which has enabled us to move with great speed on this project even in a time of unprecedented uncertainty."
Commented Tom Ortenberg "I'm thrilled to be teaming up with Joe Carnahan for the fifth time and Frank Grillo has been a good luck charm for Open Road since its inception, having been featured in Joe's film ‘The Grey,' ‘End of Watch' and ‘Homefront.' Putting Joe and Frank together with one of the biggest action stars in the world in Gerard Butler in Joe's exciting script for ‘Cop Shop' is a recipe for a big theatrical hit."
