EXCLUSIVE: Anchor Bay Films is ready to keep rumbling with pro wrestler-turned-action star Steve “Stone Cold” Austin. The distributor has pacted in Berlin with Austin’s Broken Skull Ranch Productions and Bleiberg Entertainment, inking English-speaking territory rights to a pair of upcoming actioners starring the Expendables actor. First up is the evocatively-named Kill Em All, John, starring Austin as an ex-hitman pulled back into the underworld to “retire” a number of crime bosses as the clock ticks. Filming is set to begin this summer. Stunt veteran turned action director Jesse V. Johnson (who directed Austin and Dolph Lundgren in this month’s The Package) will direct from a script by Umair Aleem with Adam Marshall executive producing.
Also aboard for the pair of pics are Bleiberg Entertainment’s Nicholas Donnermeyer and Preferred Content’s Ross Dinerstein, who will executive produce. Ehud Bleiberg will produce for Bleiberg Entertainment along with Jack Heller and Dallas Sonnier for Caliber Force. Bleiberg Entertainment’s Compound B is in Berlin shopping world rights.
Austin, a six-time World Wrestling Federation Champion who retired his Stone Cold vest from active ring duty in 2003 (after losing his WrestleMania XIX match to fellow wrestler-cum-thespian Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson), has enjoyed a fruitful partnership with Anchor Bay on genre vehicles Maximum Conviction, Hunt To Kill, and February 19′s home video release The Package. In addition to starring in the duo of new pics, he’ll produce for his own Broken Skull Ranch Productions, named after his South Texas homestead. He is repped by UTA and attorney Patrick Knapp at Bloom Hergott Diemer Rosenthal LaViolette Feldman and Goodman, LLP.
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