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ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER TO STAR IN “TEN,” TO BE DIRECTED BY DAVID AYER

Posted Monday, May 7th, 2012 - Comments Off on ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER TO STAR IN “TEN,” TO BE DIRECTED BY DAVID AYER
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For Immediate Release

OPEN ROAD FILMS TO DISTRIBUTE THE ACTION THRILLER FILM FINANCED BY QED INTERNATIONAL

LOS ANGELES, CA, May 7, 2012 – Open Road Films has acquired all U.S.distribution rights to Ten, an action thriller starring screen legend Arnold Schwarzenegger, to be directed by David Ayer and financed by QED International.  The announcement was made today by Tom Ortenberg, CEO of Open Road Films and Bill Block, CEO of QED International.

Schwarzenegger, who is currently filming The Tomb will appear in The Expendables 2, being released in August, and stars in The Last Stand which will be released in January 2013.

The project re-teams Open Road Films and filmmaker David Ayer, whose latest film, End Of Watch, will be released by Open Road on September 28, 2012.

The original screenplay for Ten is by Skip Woods (X-Men Origins: Wolverine, A Good Day To Die Hard).  David Ayer is helming the film.  Bill Block, Paul Hanson, Joe Roth, Palak Patel and Al Ruddy will serve as producers.  Alex Ott of Ayer’s Crave Films is executive producer.

In Ten, an elite DEA task force deals with the world’s deadliest drug cartels. Specializing in complex mobile operations, the team executes a tactical raid on a cartel safe house. What looks to be a typical raid turns out to be an elaborate theft operation, pre-planned by the DEA squad. After hiding millions in stolen cash, the team believes their secret is safe – until someone begins assassinating them one by one.

“I am really excited about this project and the team that’s come together,” said Schwarzenegger.  “David Ayer is incredibly talented and exactly what I want for a story this compelling.”

Ayer stated, “This is going to be an amazing role for Arnold.  Reality is the watchword of this project and an exciting cast is in the works. I couldn’t be more excited as a filmmaker to work with one of my longtime heroes.”

“We are thrilled to be working with a world class movie-star like Arnold Schwarzenegger and to continue to be in business with the extraordinarily talented David Ayer,” stated Ortenberg.  “And we could not be more pleased to be doing another picture with our friend and partner Bill Block.”

Block stated, “We’ve put together a real dream team on Ten.  Arnold has been a longtime friend and bringing him together with a provocative filmmaker like David Ayer as well as Tom Ortenberg and his talented team at Open Road is a win for all of us.”

David Ayer’s writing credits include 2001 hit film Training Day, which earned an Academy Award® for Denzel Washington, as well as scripts for The Fast And The Furious, S.W.A.T. and U-571.  He also wrote and directed Street Kings and Harsh Times. Ayer most recently directed End Of Watch, which stars Academy Award® nominee Jake Gyllenhaal and Michael Peña as young Los Angeles police officers as they patrol the city’s meanest streets of south central Los Angeles.  Giving the story a gripping, first-person immediacy, the action unfolds through footage from the handheld HD cameras of the police officers, gang members, surveillance cameras, and citizens caught in the line of fire to create a riveting portrait of the city’s most dangerous corners, the cops who risk their lives there every day, and the price they and their families are forced to pay.

The deal was negotiated on behalf of Open Road Films by Ortenberg, General Counsel and Executive Vice President of Operations and Business Affairs, Elliott Kleinberg, and Senior Vice President of Acquisitions, Ben Cotner.  Bill Block, along with Paul Hanson and Chris Corabi, negotiated the deal on behalf of QED International.  Patrick Knapp at Bloom Hergott Diemer Rosenthal negotiated on behalf of Schwarzenegger, along with Creative Artists Agency who negotiated on behalf of both Schwarzenegger and Ayer.

ABOUT OPEN ROAD FILMS

Founded in 2011 by AMC Entertainment Inc. (AMC) and Regal Entertainment Group (Regal), the two largest theatrical exhibition and entertainment companies in the United States, Open Road Films is a dynamic, acquisition-based domestic theatrical distribution company. Open Road Films’ first releases were Killer Elite, the action-thriller starring Jason Statham, Clive Owen and Robert De Niro and The Grey, the action thriller starring Liam Neeson and directed by Joe Carnahan, which opened to number one at the box office in January 2012 and has taken in over $50 million to date.  Upcoming releases include:  Hit And Run, an ensemble comedy written, produced, directed by and starring Dax Shepard, as well as Kristen Bell, Bradley Cooper, Tom Arnold and more, to be released August 24, 2012; End Of Watch, starring Jake Gyllenhaal and Michael Peña, and written and directed by David Ayer to be released September 28, 2012: Silent Hill: Revelation 3D based on the ground-breaking video game franchise to be released October 26, 2012; Bitter Pill, a thriller directed by Steven Soderbergh starring Rooney Mara, Channing Tatum, Jude Law and Catherine Zeta-Jones to be released February 8, 2013; The Host, based on Twilight series author Stephenie Meyer’s best-selling book, starring Saoirse Ronan, Max Irons, Jake Abel, Diane Kruger and William Hurt, and directed by Andrew Niccol, scheduled for release on March 29, 2013.

More info on Open Road Films at: www.openroadfilms.com, www.facebook.com/OpenRoadFilms and @OpenRoadFilms.

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It shows how out of it I was in trying to be in it, acknowledging that I was out of it to myself, and then thinking, “Okay, how do I stop being out of it? Well, I get some legitimate illogical narrative ideas” — some novel, you know?

So I decided on three writers that I might be able to option their material and get some producer, or myself as producer, and then get some writer to do a screenplay on it, and maybe make a movie.

And so the three projects were “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep,” “Naked Lunch” and a collection of Bukowski. Which, in 1975, forget it — I mean, that was nuts. Hollywood would not touch any of that, but I was looking for something commercial, and I thought that all of these things were coming.

There would be no Blade Runner if there was no Ray Bradbury. I couldn’t find Philip K. Dick. His agent didn’t even know where he was. And so I gave up.

I was walking down the street and I ran into Bradbury — he directed a play that I was going to do as an actor, so we know each other, but he yelled “hi” — and I’d forgot who he was.

So at my girlfriend Barbara Hershey’s urging — I was with her at that moment — she said, “Talk to him! That guy really wants to talk to you,” and I said “No, fuck him,” and keep walking.

But then I did, and then I realized who it was, and I thought, “Wait, he’s in that realm, maybe he knows Philip K. Dick.” I said, “You know a guy named—” “Yeah, sure — you want his phone number?”

My friend paid my rent for a year while I wrote, because it turned out we couldn’t get a writer. My friends kept on me about, well, if you can’t get a writer, then you write.”
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~ David Simon