It seems it has been forever and then some since we last saw a film from Michael Mann. Since directing 2009’s Public Enemies, Mann produced his daughter’s film, Texas Killing Fields, the now canceled HBO show “Luck” and the HBO documentary series “Witness”. A Blu-ray edition of his 1999 thriller The Insider recently debuted, but new work from Mann has been hard to find. That will change soon enough.
Details on his upcoming cyber-thriller Cyber, starring Chris Hemsworth (The Avengers) has recently emerged with The Hollywood Reporter saying it will revolve around a U.S.-China task force pursuing a hacker hailing from the Balkans and based in a Southeast Asian country.
Rumor has it Mann has been scouting locations in Hong Kong and meeting with talent including the likes of Tang Wei (Lust, Caution), Shawn Yue Man-lok (Infernal Affairs) and Nick Cheung Ka-fai (Election).
The film is being produced by Legendary Pictures whose work is largely known for films such as Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight Rises and the upcoming Man of Steel and Guillermo del Toro‘s Pacific Rim, but this connection with China is also intriguing.
Many recent films have been edited for their Chinese release, some cut down such as Skyfall and Cloud Atlas and others extended such as Looper. Marvel’s Iron Man 3 was a co-production with China as is Michael Bay‘s upcoming Transformers 4 and just as will be Mann’s new thriller. Hell, amid the delaying of the release of the Red Dawn remake, the film saw an invading Chinese army digitally altered to represent North Korea.
I don’t make these latter points to say it’s a bad thing, film has found itself smack dab in an increasingly global marketplace where overseas sales are beginning to continually dwarf domestic totals. It only makes sense to take advantage.
