Luc Besson’s EuropaCorp is developing a “Kursk” movie based on the 2000 K-141 Kursk submarine disaster, in which 118 Russians perished.
EuropaCorp has hired Danish director Martin Zandvliet to direct “Kursk” from a script by “Saving Private Ryan” screenwriter Robert Rodat, based on Robert Moore’s book “A Time to Die.”
The Kursk sunk during a Russian naval exercise in the Barents Sea after explosions within the submarine. The Russian government refused help from foreign governments for five days before agreeing to aid from the British and Norwegian governments.
The Russian Navy initially asserted that the sinking had been caused by a collision with another vessel but the government eventually admitted that the cause was a torpedo explosion in the submarine.
EuropaCorp is developing “Valerian” with Dane DeHaan and Cara Delevingne starring. Its slate includes “The Transporter Refueled,” the start of a new trilogy in the studio’s action franchise, debuting Sept. 4; “Shut In,” starring Naomi Watts, which will be released February 19; “Nine Lives,” starring Kevin Spacey and Jennifer Garner, slated for April 29; and “The Lake,” starring Sullivan Stapleton and J.K. Simmons, which will hit theaters on July 15.
Zandvliet’s “Land of Mine,” a Danish-German drama, has been selected to be shown in the Platform section of next month’s Toronto Film Festival. That film centers on a group of German POWs being put to work by the Allies defusing their own landmines on the west coast of Denmark in the immediate aftermath of World War II.
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“Kursk” will be Zandvliet’s first English-language film. The director is repped by WME and Magnolia Entertainment.
