Monday, October 14, 2013

Miyavi & Jordan Patrick Smith Go For "Unbroken"

Japanese guitarist and singer Miyavi is set, and Aussie actor Jordan Patrick Smith is in talks to join the cast of the biopic drama "Unbroken" says Deadline,



Based on author Laura Hillenbrand's 2010 bestselling biography, that chronicles the life of Olympic athlete Louis Zamperini  ("Skins" and "Eden Lake" star Jack O'Connell). He was captured by the Japanese navy and detained at a P.O.W. camp. That came AFTER he survived both a near-fatal plane crash and being stuck on a raft for 47 days.

Miyavi will play the role of that overseer Mutsuhiro Watanabe, known as 'The Bird', who made it his mission to break the spirit of Zamperini. Smith would play Cliff, an Australian prisoner who can’t take life in the Pow camp much longer.

Garrett Hedlund ("On the Road," "Tron: Legacy") will play fellow P.O.W. Commander John Fitzgerald Domhnall Gleeson ("About Time," "Anna Karenina") will play a fellow survivor of the plane crash. Alex Russell ("Chronicle) will play Pete, Zamperini’s older brother and member of the US athletics team for the 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin. John Magaro will play Frank A. Tinker, an Air Force dive bomb pilot and opera singer who befriends Zamperini en route to a Japanese POW camp.Finn Wittrock also stars.

"Les Miserables" writer William Nicholson penned a script draft for the pic. Richard Lagravenese worked on the script before that, but with Angelina Jolie now in the big chair a new draft was needed and she managed to convince the Joel and Joel Coen to do it.

Jolie came onboard as director last December, replacing the previously linked Francis Lawrence.   This film  marks Jolie's second effort as director following "In The Land Of Blood And Honey".

Matthew Baer ("The Replacement Killers") Clayton Townsend and Erwin Stoff ("The Blind Side") are producing with Jolie. Mick Garris is executive producing

Filming begins in Australia in two weeks ahead of a Christmas Day 2014 release.

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