Martin Scorsese to Executive Produce Andrew Lau's 'Green Dragons'

4:54 AM PST 2/12/2013 by Clarence Tsui

178
69
2
3
101
Email
Print
Comments

A story of two Chinese siblings’ rise and fall within a New York gang, the film will begin production in April with financing from Octane, IM Global’s genre arm.

BERLIN – Martin Scorsese and Andrew Lau finally will join forces on the New York-set gangster action-thriller Revenge of the Green Dragons, six years after the U.S. director won his first (and, as of yet, only) Oscar with The Departed, an adaptation of the Hong Kong filmmaker’s Infernal Affairs.

Martin Scorsese Joins Luc Besson's 'Malavita' as Executive Producer

HBO, Martin Scorsese to Give Bill Clinton Documentary Treatment

Scorsese will serve as an executive producer for the project.

It is understood that Lau visited the U.S. last month to confirm details of the production after spending the end of last year presiding over the release of his own directorial effort The Guillotines, which was repped by We Distribution at the EFM, and then The Last Tycoon, the Distribution Workshop-fronted market title that he produced.

With shooting planned to begin in April, Revenge of the Green Dragons is fully financed by Octane, IM Global’s genre-film division, according to an announcement by IM Global CEO Stuart Ford, producer Allen Bain and Lau’s creative partner Andrew Loo. Ford and Bain will produce the film alongside Ara Katz and 7th Floor Produtions’ Jesse Scolaro, while Scorsese will executive produce alongside Deepak Nayar, Steve Squillante, Michael Bassick and Artfire’s Art Spigel.

Based on a Michael Di Jiacomo script born out of a New Yorker article about the American-Chinese underworld, the film revolves around two immigrants fighting their way up the Green Dragons gang, and then their struggle to confront their former associates after one of them is cast beyond the pale for his trysts with his clan chieftain.

Green Dragons will be Lau’s second attempt to crack Hollywood. His first foray into English-language filmmaking, the Richard Gere-starring detective thriller The Flock, was a straight-to-video release in 2008. Lau also is slated to appear at the Hong Kong International Film Festival in March as its director-in-focus before heading to the U.S. for the Green Dragons shoot.