The last time Empire saw Tony Kaye, the talented but intense ads director who was reportedly locked out of the editing suite on American History X, he was dressed as Osama bin Laden whilst interviewing Marlon Brando, and looked no closer to a return to mainstream directing (he has made a couple of documentaries since his experiences with Ed Norton on the incendiary neo-Nazi drama).
But now it would seem that Kaye is back back back (although not so back back back that we had a picture of him ready to use, hence the Bruce Willis stopgap above), with Production Weekly reporting that the British helmer is in talks to replace Samuel Bayer as director of Black Water Transit, a sprawling thriller about gun running that would reunite Pulp Fiction’s Bruce Willis and Samuel L. Jackson for the first time since Die Hard With A Vengeance.
We’re not sure why Bayer – Green Day’s video director of choice – has left the project in the middle of pre-production, but if you’ve ever seen a Making Of… of one of his top pop promos, then he cheerfully admits to being a hard taskmaster. So by plumping for the notoriously eccentric Kaye to replace him, producers on the movie may well be in one of those tricky frying pan/fire situations.
However, Empire is pleased for Kaye, who showed enough promise with American History X – even if the final cut wasn't his – to warrant another shot at a big movie. And with Willis and Jackson on board, they don’t come much bigger than this. Let’s hope that this time, things go more smoothly for Kaye…
By the by, the plot description makes this sound like the Traffic of gun smuggling, as Willis plays a criminal trying to move his arsenal to a safe location, while cops, more crooks and lawyers (hey, even more crooks! Arf arf!) butt heads over illegal shipments and a double homicide. So now you know – it all sounds pretty promising, but in Empire’s opinion the first thing Kaye should do is change that horrendous title. Come on, seriously: can any movie flourish with 'Transit' in the title?