Who says Luc Besson is canceled?
According to Variety, Kiefer Sutherland is set to team up with Al Pacino and rising star Ever Anderson (“Black Widow”) in “Father Joe,” an upcoming action thriller written and produced by Besson (“Léon: The Professional”).
Set in 1990s Manhattan, the film will see Sutherland play a priest who declares a one-man war on the city’s criminal underworld. Pacino steps into the role of a powerful mob boss whose empire collides with Father Joe’s violent crusade, while Anderson plays a young woman caught between danger and redemption under the priest’s protection.
“Father Joe” begins filming in mid-October with Barthélémy Grossmann (“Arthur: Malediction”) directing. The project is being produced by LB Production and EuropaCorp — the latter, of course, being the company behind Besson’s long line of stylized action hits, including “Taken” and “Lucy.”
Sutherland, who also joins as producer, told Variety that the chance to helm a Besson film is one he just couldn’t say no to:
I have been a fan of Luc Besson going back to ‘Subway.’ As a director and a writer, he has a unique capacity to weave drama and action together without sacrificing either. I’m so excited about this opportunity to work with him as the writer of ‘Father Joe’ and director Barthélémy Grossmann. I can’t wait to get started.
The project arrives as Besson is coming off “Dracula: A Love Story,” his gothic horror romance starring Caleb Landry Jones and Christoph Waltz. The film has performed strongly in several international markets, including Russia — where it’s become the country’s third biggest international hit since 2022.
With “Father Joe,” Besson seems to be returning to his comfort zone: morally conflicted men of violence, stylish New York grit, and a dash of redemption — this time filtered via Kiefer Sutherland’s brooding intensity.
Besson, 66, has been embroiled in #MeToo controversies these last few years, but he continues to work on, and at a frenetic pace — writing, producing, directing. In fact, his next directing gig (“The Last Man”) is supposed to star Snoop Dogg.
He, of course, built his name on a run of ’80s and ’90s hits—“The Big Blue,” “La Femme Nikita,” “Léon: The Professional,” “The Fifth Element”—and later penned 2008’s “Taken,” the film that spawned more than a decade of one-man-army knockoffs.