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French actress Eva Green and Americans Jeffrey Dean Morgan (Watchmen) and Michael Raymond-James (Jack Reacher) have joined the cast of The Salvation, a Nordic saga-inspired Western from Danish director Kristian Levring (The King Is Alive), which is shooting in South Africa.
THe English-language drama stars Mads Mikkelsen, who stars as infamous psychologist/cannibal Hannibal Lecter in NBC’s critically acclaimed crime drama Hannibal, as a peaceful settler in 1870s America forced to carry out violent revenge.
VIDEO: ‘Hannibal’: Go Inside the Brain of Hannibal Lecter
Green, who headlined the Starz fantasy miniseries Camelot and appeared in TIm Burton‘s Dark Shadows, has a full dance card at the moment, with roles in two highly anticipated sequels: Sin City 2 and 300: Rise of an Empire. Salvation reunites her with the Danish Mikkelsen following their work together on the James Bond feature Casino Royale (2006).
Other big names added to the cast include acclaimed British actor Jonathan Pryce (Pirates of the Caribbean); Sweden’s Mikael Persbrandt, star of Susanne Bier‘s Oscar-winning In a Better World and a supporting role in the final two entries in Peter Jackson‘s Hobbit trilogy; Scottish actor Douglas Henshall (The Eagle); and French soccer star-turned-actor Eric Cantona (Looking for Eric).
The film’s script was co-written by Levring and prolific Danish writer-director Anders Thomas Jensen — who co-wrote The King Is Alive as well as Levring’s most recent feature, Fear Me Not, and collaborated with Bier on In a Better World and her latest, All You Need Is Love.
The story centers on John (Mikkelsen), a settler whose family is brutally murdered. John kills the killer, drawing the wrath of local gang leader Delarue, and the peaceful farmer is forced to fight the outlaws to save his town.
The King Is Alive cinematographer Jens Schlosser is lensing Salvation, which will shoot for eight weeks on location in Johannesburg. The editor is Pernille Bech Christensen (In a Better World).
Sisse Graum Jorgensen, producer of In a Better World as well as Thomas Vinterberg‘s The Hunt, which won Mikkelsen the best actor award last year in Cannes , is producing The Salvation for Denmark’s Zentropa Entertainments33 in co-production with Spier Films in South Africa and Forward Films from the U.K. The Danish Film Institute and public broadcaster DR are backing the $13.7 million (€10.5 million) feature, together with the Nordisk Film and TV Fond and the European Union’s MEDIA program.
TrustNordisk kicked off presales of The Salvation in Berlin this year and will be pushing the title at next month’s Marche du Film in Cannes.
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