Millennium Films and Olympus Has Fallen director Antoine Fuqua has fired a new shot in the battle of the Besieged White House Action Thrillers, lining up a president in the shape of Aaron Eckhart.
Gerard Butler is set to star in the action thriller, playing a former Secret Service agent who ends up as America’s only hope when the White House is taken over by terrorists. Casting Eckhart as the Commander In Chief suggests that he won’t be standing idly by as his fancy residence is threatened, and will be doing everything he can to help Butler fight the bad guys. Maybe he'll get to growl, "Get off my plane lawn!" at one of the terrorists at some point.
Fuqua, working from a script by Creighton Rothenberger and Katrin Benedikt, will kick off directing the movie in September.
Fuqua will be in direct competition with Roland Emmerich, who has his own presidential thriller, White House Down, getting set to shoot soon. He’s rounded up Channing Tatum and Maggie Gyllenhaal to play agents who have to help save the president (Jamie Foxx, if he signs on) when a similar situation occurs. That one was written by James Vanderbilt.
Emmerich’s film is set to arrive in November 2013, with no set release date for Fuqua’s movie. Will it be a steady cold war as with the Snow White outings this year? Watch this space…