Shekhar Kapur goes after serial killers with the help of Bruce Willis in a film called Solace.
Willis, apparently still hungry for films with a psychic background, is perhaps hoping to see at least a fraction of the huge success of M Night Shyamalan's The Sixth Sense,which grossed over $700 million worldwide.
The once-powerful star whose name guaranteed a $300 million worldwide gross, with films such as Die Hard has been fighting hard to arrest his declining career.
He will play a doctor with psychic powers in Solace, Hollywood trade publications reported. The film will be produced by New Line Cinema.
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Kapur too needs a hit, especially after a major setback following the worldwide collapse of his $75 million feature, The Four Feathers, three years ago. The new movie could cost about $40 million, and it would be Kapur's first film to be shot in North America.
His Elizabeth was filmed in England, and The Four Feathers in England and East Africa.
Kapur's name is still attached to Long Walk To Freedom, a screen bio of Nelson Mandela with Oscar-winner Morgan Freeman signed to play the elder statesman.
He has also been signed to direct a telefilm about the Rwanda civil war, and the concomitant murder of over a million people there.
With the $70 million Mandela film still waiting to get funding, Solace could be Kapur's third English language film bound for theatres.
Willis's newest film, Hostage, a crime drama based on a best-selling novel of the same name by Robert Crais, opened to mediocre numbers last week and could wrap its North American run with just about $20 million.
Willis used to get paid that for a single film, not too long ago.
But Hostage, costing about $45 million, is doing better business abroad.
The new film is based on a screenplay by Ted Griffin, who was one of the three scriptwriters on comedic adventure Ocean's Twelve that grossed about $360 million worldwide. He was also a writer on the black comedy, The Matchstick Men, that grossed $100 million worldwide. Bailey was one of the producers on The Matchstick Men.
New Line Cinema's hits include The Lord Of The Ring trilogy and Rush Hour, but it has not seen a blockbuster in sometime. Its recent special effects comedy adventure The Son Of Mask was a disaster.
This is the first time Kapur is working with New Line.
His first film Elizabeth, a hit, was released by a division of Universal and his next, The Four Feathers, was a Miramax and Paramount co-production.
