Olivia Wilde on board Free Fire

Rising UK director Ben Wheatley will be heading to the US for the first time with his next movie, 1970s crime drama ‘Free Fire’, which has lined up Armie Hammer, Cillian Murphy, Olivia Wilde and Luke Evans as cast members.

Wheatley regular Michael Smiley will also star. Evans also features in Wheatley’s upcoming film ‘High-Rise’, currently in post-production.

‘Free Fire’, which is being launched for pre-sales at AFM by Protagonist Pictures, is set in 1978 in Boston. Wilde is set to play a woman who brokers a meeting between two men – Murphy and Smiley – and a gang led by Hammer and Evans. The film has a $10 million budget.

"The idea for ‘Free Fire’ came from my love of hard-boiled crime movies; from ‘The Asphalt Jungle’, ‘The Big Sleep’, ‘The Killing’ and ‘The Big Combo’ through ‘The Driver’, ‘Le Samourai’ and ‘The French Connection’, to the modern cycle of ‘Goodfellas’, ‘Casino’, ‘Hard Boiled’ and ‘Reservoir Dogs’,” said Wheatley. "‘Free Fire’ will take you and stick you in the middle of the action. I want the film to have the stylish, no-nonsense feel that you get in Peckinpah's ‘The Getaway’. It’s a modern ‘70s movie - muscular, tough and spare."