Red commences shooting

Shooting of Robert Schwentke’s adaptation of comic book Red began shooting today in Toronto. I’ll be honest – I know little to nothing about the comics, but they seem to have a cool visual style. Surprisingly it seems to involve a lot of red.

Robert Schwentke’s previous efforts include Flightplan and The Time Traveler’s Wife, which doesn’t put him in a hugely great stead – and the screenplay for Red was written by Jon & Erich Hoeber, who previously scripted 2009′s Whiteout, starring Kate Beckinsale. I haven’t seen Whiteout, but it didn’t get brilliant reviews… Why be interested in Red at all then?

The press release, available in its entirety over at Latino Review, lists an absolutely incredible cast: Bruce Willis, Mary-Louise Parker (Weeds), Helen Mirren, Morgan Freeman, John Malkovich, Karl Urban, Brian Cox, and Richard Dreyfuss. It’s star-studded anyway, and I like at least 6 of those actors. And that’s what we want to see.

Our good friend Brucie portrays Paul Moses, a retired CIA agent whose assassination is ordered by said agency’s new director. Naturally, he’s not too happy about it, resulting in many bullets and explosions, presumably. Where have we heard that before? It doesn’t sound original by any means, but then I haven’t read the comics, so I won’t make any assumptions. Well…I can hazard a guess that the plot won’t be majorly involving. I’ll gladly be proved wrong however, and despite the storyline, the combination of a great cast and a striking visual style could make this a very fun watch. We want fun, don’t we?

Red hits screens in October this year.