Noyce to Return to South Africa with ‘Mixed Blood’

For those keeping track, the Phillip Noyce name often gets attached to the next project “scheduled to begin principal photography”. I’m not sure if its a string of bad luck or just a case of the trades throwing in the Australian native’s name into a headline. While we can probably cross off the likes of Dirt Music, American Pastoral, Mary Queen of Scots, it now appears that Noyce will follow up Salt with a thriller working from yet again a novel and with Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead‘s Kelly Masterson who has been hired to write the screenplay.

Noyce who filmed Catch A Fire in South Africa, will probably be returning with Mixed Blood. Roger Smith’s novel details the story of an American named Jack Burn, hiding out in Cape Town, South Africa, after being blackmailed into a bank heist back home, is building a new life for his pregnant wife and young son, when an incident of random violence sets him on a collision course with street gangs and a rogue cop who loves killing almost as much as he loves Jesus Christ. The casting process will probably recruit a male actor in his 30’s to measure up to the evil and good characters. Samuel L. Jackson would take on the role of the Zulu cop named Disaster Zondi character. Oddly the first actor that came to mind for the ex-marine starting over was a Patrick Wilson, but this would only remind viewers of Lakeview Terrace.

Variety reports that GreeneStreet Films hired the director and is co-financing and producing the project with A Bigger Boat and the recently restructured Sidney Kimmel Entertainment. Sam Jackson’s Uppity Films also is producing. For an excerpt of the novel – click here.