A few years ago, you might recall Clive Owen taking on the mantle of The Driver for a series of shorts commissioned by BMW with the overall title The Hire. He's back behind the wheel for a new short, The Escape and has Neill Blomkamp in the director's chair.
And the filmmaker has rounded up an impressive cast to co-star alongside Owen, including Dakota Fanning, Jon Bernthal and Vera Farmiga. It's being touted as an homage to the original run of shorts, which appeared across two seasons in 2001 and 2002 as Owen's mysterious wheelman completed various missions.
Back then, the shorts had the likes of Ang Lee, Joe Carnahan, Wong Kar-wai, Guy Ritchie, John Woo and Tony Scott behind the camera, but Blomkamp is just making the one. Though he did try to get on board before... "I was like, ‘Man, count me in,’" Blomkamp tells The Hollywood Reporter. "When I was in film school, these films were really groundbreaking. They seemed like the perfect halfway point between commercials and features. I actually emailed the production company as a 20 year old and was like, ‘I’d really like to make one of these,’ They wrote back, ‘Never contact us again.' And here I am." No sign of Chappie, though. Sorry, Chappie fans.
The Escape will be on BMW Films' site on October 23. You can see a featurette on it below.