EXCLUSIVE: Damian Lewis, Jessica Brown-Findlay, Peter Capaldi and Iwan Rheon will star in actor/writer/director David Leon’s debut feature Driven.
Production on the crime thriller is set to start in and around Newcastle and Northumberland in early 2013. Driven will be produced by Daisy Allsop with the photographer Rankin attached as executive producer alongside Gareth Wiley. German production company GFF will co-produce. The film will be made through Leon’s production company Zeitgeist Films.
Leon, currently starring in ITV’s detective drama Vera, was the winner of Best Narrative Feature at last year’s Tribeca Film Festival with his short film Man And Boy, starring Eddie Marsan, which he also co-wrote based on a true story. His first short Father, starring Sam Spruell, also met with positive response and international exposure. Leon’s second feature Orthodox is currently in development with Northern Film & Media’s Film 4Ward scheme, in association with Film4.
Driven is a loosely autobiographical film, a crime thriller based around Leon’s own childhood experiences growing up in Newcastle in the late ’80s and early ’90s.
You can read a good synopsis of the project here at the GFF website.