Cincinnati native Johanna Byer comes home next week to produce Netflix's remake of the 2010 French thriller Point Blank with Captain America stars Anthony Mackie and Frank Grillo, as well as Oscar-winner Marcia Gay Harden from CBS' Code Black.
Byer, hired last year as vice president for the legendary French studio Gaumont, will be the producer on the film for Gaumont, according to Variety. Joe Lynch (Mayhem) is directing from a script by Adam Simon.
Harden, the Academy Award winner for Pollock in 2000, was added to the cast last week. Here's a link to my July 16 story saying that filming begins Monday, Aug. 6.
Mackie will play an emergency room nurse who helps a wounded murder suspect (Grillo) escape from the hospital after a rival gang kidnaps the injured man's pregnant wife.
Point Blank producers will attend a press conference Tuesday with Kristen Schlotman, Film Cincinnati executive director, and casting director D. Lynn Meyers, Film Cincinnati announced Monday.
In addition to Harden, Point Blank producers have hired Teyonah Parris, Empire's Pamela Rose. Her credits include Mad Men, Survivor's Remorse and They Came Together.
The Internet Movie Database also lists cast members Boris McGiver (House of Cards, Person of Interest, Boardwalk Empire, The Wire) and Markice Moore (The Paynes, Snowfall, The Walking Dead, Rectify).
Byer, a 2009 graduate of the University of Southern California's Marshall School of Business, was hired by Gaumont to launch a new U.S. film division, Variety reported last year.
Before that, she was a vice president at Working Title Films, and co-produced Warner Brothers' We Are Your Friends starring Zac Efron. She started her career at Brillstein Entertainment Partners. She is a board member of the acclaimed non-profit organization Jewish National Fund and is a member of the Young Producers Circle of the Center Theater Group.
