‘Old Guy’ By Simon West.

In January 2023, one of the packages ready to sell at Berlin’s EFM market was “Con Air” director Simon West’s new film titled “Old Guy”, starring two-time Oscar winner Christoph Waltz. As you can expect from West, the film is an action-comedy with the screenplay written by Greg Johnson (The Last Son). Highland Film Group is co-financing and launching world sales on the project.

In April 2023, Cooper Hoffman, son of the great Philip Seymour Hoffman, was cast in the film. Copper had made his debut in Paul Thomas Anderson’s “Licorice Pizza”, and he has been busy lately, his next film will be Jason Reitman’s “Saturday Night”, which recently premiered at the 51st Telluride Film Festival. Later in that month, Lucy Liu (Kill Bill) and Desmond Eastwood were also announced to have joined the cast for Old Guy.

Synopsis: The film follows aging contract killer Danny Dolinski (Waltz), who still believes he’s the best at what he does. Stuck at a dead end but vying for the love of club manager Anata (Liu), Danny is thrilled when The Company pulls him back in the field — but it’s only to train Gen Z newcomer Wihlborg (Hoffman), a prodigy assassin with an attitude. The mismatched pair is asked to eliminate top members of a competing crime syndicate and, in the process, uncover their employer’s true motive: removing the old guard in a full takeover. However, The Company didn’t anticipate that Danny’s experience, coupled with Wihlborg’s brilliance, could enable them to turn it all back on The Company.

Waltz most recently lent his voice to Guillermo Del Toro’s “Pinocchio” and will also soon be seen starring in Del Toro’s upcoming “Frankenstein” movie, alongside Jacob Elordi and Mia Goth.

Principal photography began in Belfast, Northern Ireland in spring 2023. In May, the film was in post-production and completed post-production on June 22, 2024. It also got an R rating.

Simon West is primarily known for no brainer action movies, his past credits as a director include; “Con Air”, “Lara Croft: Tomb Raider”, “The Mechanic” and “The Expendables 2”. I also just found out West was the director for the famous Rick Astley music video “Never Gonna Give You Up”.

The Avenue landed the North American rights to the film in March, 2024. “Old Guy” will make it’s world premier as the opening night film at this year’s Newport Beach Film Festival. Waltz and West are expected to attend the screening on October 17.

Martin Ahlgren is the cinematographer for “Old Guy”, he has worked on Netflix shows “House of Cards” and “3 Body Problem”.

The Avenue will release “Old Guy” in summer 2025.