Gerard Butler, Sam Worthington, Matthew McConaughey Team for Iraq War Pic 'Thunder Run'

Lather up the beefcake! Gerard Butler, Sam Worthington and Matthew McConaughey are teaming up for Thunder Run, an all-CG 3D action thriller being made by Freedom Films.

Simon West is set to direct, according to Freedom Films, while Hyde Park International is handling international sales and launching the title at AFM.

The movie is adapting the novel Thunder Run - The Armored Strike to Capture Baghdad, by Pulitzer Prize-winning correspondent David Zucchino. Robert Port, who won an Oscar in 2003 for best short documentary, and Ken Nolan, who co-wrote Black Hawk Down, penned the script.

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The project aims to recount the capture of Baghdad by American forces at the start of the Iraq War in 2003. The three-day assault was referred as a “lightning strike” or “thunder run.” The producers want to paint “the harrowing picture of the soldiers on the front lines and the realities of modern warfare.”

The Graphic Film Company has been tapped to utilize proprietary facial-capture technology it used on West’s upcoming Night of the Living Dead: Origins 3D movie along with the motion capture technology used in Avatar, said Freedom Films.

Producing are Freedom Films’ Brian Presley, along with the company’s Carissa Buffel and Kevin Matusow as well as  Jib Polhemus of the Graphic Film Company.

The trio's work will consist mostly of voicework but there will be green-screen aspects as well.

“What we capture in our cameras will be them,” Presley told The Hollywood Reporter. “It’ll have a stylized effect to it but we are shooting them. We’re not ageing them down like Jeff Bridges in Tron Legacy, it’ll be them for two hours in a highly intense tank battle.
 
“The scope of the movie is going to feel huge and thegoal is to appeal to the Call of Duty world. It’s not going to have a video game world feel but to have a stylized look to it.
 
"We’re locked and loaded and will shoot next year."

Thunder Run is repped by Gersh with CAA also coming on board to rep the movie. Gersh also reps Freedom Films.    

Butler is repped by CAA and Alan Siegel Entertainment, Worthington by CAA and Anonymous Content, McConaughey by CAA and attorney Kevin Morris. West is also repped by CAA.