John Stockwell has signed on to direct Sanctuary, a film that is based on Irish novelist John Connelly’s book Bad Men.
“In 1693, the settlers on the small Maine island of Sanctuary were betrayed to their enemies and slaughtered. Since then, the island has known three hundred years of peace.
Until now.
Four men are descending on Sanctuary, their purpose to hunt down and kill the wife of their leader and retrieve the money that she stole from him. All that stands in their way are a young rookie officer, Sharon Macy, and the island’s strange, troubled policeman, the giant known as Melancholy Joe Dupree.
But Joe Dupree is no ordinary policeman. He is the guardian of the island’s secrets, the repository of its memories. He knows that Sanctuary has been steeped in blood once; it will tolerate the shedding of innocent blood no longer. Now a band of killers is set to desecrate
Sanctuary and unleash the fury of its ghosts upon themselves and all who stand by them.
On Sanctuary, all hell is about to break loose…”
Stockwell started out in the early 80s as an actor, appearing films like Top Gun (He was Cougar), Christine and Eddie and the Cruisers.
In the late 80s, he started to work behind the scenes as well and has been focusing mainly on writing and directing in the 00s. He previously directed Crazy/Beautiful (With Kirsten Dunst and Bruce Davison) and Into the Blue (a thriller staring Paul Walker and Jessica Alba) as well as having wrote and directed Blue Crush ( a film about female surfers in Hawaii ). He recently directed the horror flick Turistas. As you can see, his directing career has covered a wide variety of styles.
Screenwriting duties are being handled by Stephen Susco. Suco previously wrote the screenplays for The Grudge I & II and is also an Executive producer for Sanctuary.
For those of you that are not familiar with Connolly’s work, he manages to show both the darkest aspects of man as well as the finest points of humanity in a style that is graphic yet often poetic.
I can honestly say I think he is one of the finest fiction writers alive today and should be read by all.
