Maybe Renny Harlin is one of those filmmakers that the change of century has punished most, with numberless low-interest projects on his name. But back in the 1990s, he was one of the top action movies directors delivering films like Die Hard 2 (1990), The Adventures of Ford Fairlane (1990), The Long Kiss Goodnight (1996), Cliffhanger (1993), Cutthroat Island (1995) or Deep Blue Sea (1999). But besides action flicks, he also directed a good bunch of interesting horror films along his career, like Prison (1987), A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master (1988), Mindhunters (2004), Exorcist: The Beginning (2004) or The Dyatlov Pass Incident (2013) only to name a few. The Finnish filmmaker, always very prolific along his whole career, has been established in China for the last years where he has also been busy with films like the very forgettable Skiptrace (2016) and the already in post-production Legend of the Ancient Sword (2018). Based on the video game of the same name, this fantasy martial arts film is due to hit theaters before the end of this year.
But, as it has been confirmed by Renny Harlin himself, his new project is going to take the path of classic horror, “an action adventure-cum-thriller featuring extreme sports, tomb raiding and mutant creatures”. The title of this movie is The Hanging Coffin, and it’s a production of Shanghai Film Group and Shanghai New Wave Films. This will be Harlin’s third movie combining the languages of Chinese and English. Also, will include a cast of names from both Hollywood and China.
The Hanging Coffin script is being written at the moment by Anthony Jaswinski, notorious for the text of shark horror flick The Shallows (2016), directed by Jaume Collet-Serra. This new project was announced Sunday during the first full day of the Shanghai International Film Festival. Filming locations and schedule are not public yet.
