We have learned that Bruce Willis and John Travolta are starring together again for the first time in 27 years in the Chuck Russell-directed action pic Paradise City. Production starts this Monday in Maui, Hawaii.
Willis plays renegade bounty hunter, Ryan Swan, who must carve his way through the Hawaiian crime world to wreak vengeance on the kingpin, played by Travolta, who murdered his father. I’m told the project is billed as being similar to Miami Vice but with bounty hunters instead of cops. Thai actress and model Praya Lundberg has landed the lead female role.
Though Paradise City technically reps the fourth time that Willis and Travolta are billed on a movie together, they only worked onscreen in the 1994 Oscar-winning $214M-grossing Quentin Tarantino movie Pulp Fiction respectively as boxer Butch Coolidge and mob guy Vincent Vega. Check out their scene below from that pic. Prior to that Willis voiced baby Mikey to Travolta’s Daddy James in TriStar’s Look Who’s Talking and Look Who’s Talking Too which combined grossed over $345M in 1989 and 1990.
Corey Large, who has produced and executive produced several Willis features including Cosmic Sin, Breach, Apex, Marauders, Acts of Violence, First Kill, Fire With Fire, Extraction, Vice, The Prince and Precious Cargo, is co-writing Paradise City with his writing partner Ed John Drake. Large has been looking to make this Willis and Travolta reteam since 2006. Large will also star as part of Willis’ bounty hunting posse in the film. Hawaii plays a big character in the script and it was important for the production to shoot there, I’m told.
BondIt Media Capital is financing with Large’s 308 Enterprises producing. Saban is handling domestic distribution with The Exchange overseeing foreign sales. EPs are Stephen Eads , Johnny Messner, Matthew Helderman, and Luke Taylor. Brian O’Shea and Nat McCormick of The Exchange, Ruben Islas and Stanley Preschutti of Grandave Capital, Jas Boparai and Sean Patrick O’Reilly of Arcana Studio, and Lee Broda of LB Entertainment are also EPs on Paradise City. Jordan Yale Levine, Jordan Beckerman, and Jon Keeyes of Yale Productions are also EPs on the film.
Russell is the director of such hits as The Mask, Eraser, and The Scorpion King. He is repped by Pacific Artists Management and Lichter, Grossman, Nichols, Adler, Feldman & Clark.
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