MADRID — Freddie Highmore, star of ABC’s “The Good Doctor,” the top exported U.S. scripted series last year, has been joined on bank heist thriller “Way Down” by Liam Cunningham, Astrid Bergès-Frisbey and Sam Riley.
Cunningham plays Sir Davos Seaworth in “Game of Thrones”; Astrid Bergès-Frisbey embodied mermaid Syrena in “Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides.”; Riley portrayed Ian Curtis in “Control,” and Diaval in Disney‘s “Maleficent,” alongside Angelina Jolie.
Directed by Jaume Balagueró (“[REC],” “Sleep Tight”), the ambitious English-language heist thriller partners two of Europe’s biggest media corporations, Spain’s Mediaset España and France’s TF1 Group. Ghislain Barrois and Álvaro Augustín, at Telecinco Cinema, Mediaset España’s film arm, are producing with El Tesoro de Drake AIE, Ciudadano Ciskul (Francisco Sánchez) and Think Studio (Eneko Lizarraga), in collaboration with Mediaset España and TF1 Group.
Highmore himself will take a producer credit. “Way Down” will be sold at next month’s Cannes Festival by TFI Group’s cinema division TF1 Studio, which is handling both international sales and also domestic distribution in France.
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Going into production on April 13, “Way Down” also stars two of Spain’s best-known actors, Luis Tosar (“Miami Vice”) and Jose Coronado (“Gigantes). They will be joined by Axel Stein (“Not My Day”), Famke Janssen (“X-Men: The Last Stand”), and, of further Spanish cast, Emilio Gutiérrez Caba (“La Comunidad”), and Daniel Holguín (“Che: Guerrilla”).
Currently shooting in Madrid – where “Way Down” closed down its Plaza Cibeles. the Spanish capital’s equivalent of Piccadilly Circus, for scenes involved some 1,000 extra on Sunday – it will continue its 11-week shoot on the Spanish coast. The movie stars Highmore as Thom, a genius engineering graduate whose interest is piqued by the Bank of Spain whose safe, built over 100 years ago, has no blueprints and whose security system includes an underground river that floods the safe room if breached.
Learning that a legendary lost treasure will be deposited in the bank’s safe for just 10 days, Thom masterminds a meticulous plan along with charismatic art dealer Walter (Cunningham) to break into the Bank.
But they have only 90 minutes to do so, when the bank’s staff will be mightily distracted by the 2010 soccer World Cup final, played by Spain and re-transmitted on a giant screen which, as chance would have it, will be erected just in front of the Bank of Spain.
VFX effects will be made by El Ranchito, which has worked on “Mission Impossible: a Rogue Nation,” “Game of Thrones” and “The Impossible.” Sandra Hermida (‘A Monster Calls,” “The Impossible,” “The Orphanage”) serves as executive and line producer and Daniel Aranyó (“Regression”) as director of photography.
The thriller’s screemplay was written by Andrés Koppel (“On Death Row”), Borja González Santaolalla (“[REC] 3, Genesis”), Rafael Martínez (“Sweet Home”), Michel Gaztambide (“Gigantes”) and Rowan Athale (“Wasteland”).
Telecinco Cinema’s English-language production credits include “The Impossible,” which grossed $180.3 million worldwide, and “A Monster Calls” ($47.3 million), both from “Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom” director J.A. Bayona, and, in Spanish, Guillermo del Toro’s “Pan’s Labyrinth” ($83.3 million), still reckoned by many to be Del Toro’s best movie.
Highmore is represented by UTA, Cunningham by Paradigm Talent Agency, Bergès-Frisbey by CAA, Riley by WME Ent., Stein by Katy Seinfeld, Jannsen by ICM Partners, Tosar by O Rocho Talent Agency and Coronado by Majos Martínez Montesinos.
CREDIT: Rex Shutterstock
