‘Red 3’ in the Works at Summit (Exclusive)

Summit is seeing more Red.

Red 2 isn’t being released until July 19, but the Lionsgate division has signed Jon and Erich Hoeber to write a third installment of the action franchise.

The screenwriting siblings wrote Red as well as Red 2.

Lorenzo Di Bonaventura and Mark Vahradian will produce Red 3 via their Di Bonaventura Pictures banner.

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Red was based on a comic book mini-series by Warren Ellis and Cully Hamner and revolved around the conceit of over-the-hill operatives kicking the butts of younger agents.

The 2010 film assembled Bruce Willis, Helen Mirren, John Malkovich and Morgan Freeman and proved to have legs at the box office, grossing $90 million domestically and $199 million worldwide.

Red 2 once again sees Willis as the retired black ops agent who has to reassemble his old team. Big names joining the fun this time around are Anthony Hopkins and Catherine Zeta-Jones.

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Summit is the company behind the Twilight movie series and has been looking to develop new franchises since that one ran its course last year. Red may not have the same breadth or reach as Stephenie Meyer‘s phenomenon, but it still counts for something solid in today’s environment.

It also helps that sources say Summit has been supremely encouraged by Red 2‘s high test scores.

No deals with the cast have been made but insiders say if the script is approved, production could begin as early as January 2014.

Erik Feig, Lionsgate’s president of production, will oversee the project for the studio along with Summit’s president of production Geoff Shaevitz.

The Hoeber brothers, repped by Verve and Piekoff Mahan, also wrote last summer’s Battleship movie.

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