Gerard Butler to Star in FBI Thriller 'The Bricklayer,' Based on the Novel by Noah Boyd (Exclusive)

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/gerard-butler-star-fbi-thriller-220434?utm_source=FlickDaily.com&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=FlickDaily.com


Gerard Butler to Star in FBI Thriller 'The Bricklayer,' Based on the Novel by Noah Boyd (Exclusive)

Project is the first to be assembled by Mark Gill, since becoming president of Millennium Films.

Millenium Films has acquired the rights to The Bricklayer, the best-selling novel by former FBI agent Noah Boyd, and attached Gerard Butler to star as a rogue former agent who’s called in to help battle a criminal group that is demanding an escalating series of multi-million dollar ransom payments.

It’s the first project to be assembled by Mark Gill since he stepped into the role of Millenium president in June, and he’ll oversee it along with Boaz Davidson, head of development and creative affairs, and head of production John Thompson.

Hanna Weg (Enigma) is adapting the novel for the screen. Butler, Alan Siegel and Danielle Robinson are producing, with Erik Lindsay and Weg serving as executive producers.

The Bricklayer was published by William Morrow in January, 2010. Boyd is actually a pseudonym used by former FBI agent Paul Lindsay. In the book, his main character, Steve Vail, is a former FBI agent, working as a Chicago bricklayer, whom the agency reaches out to help track down and combat the criminal gang. The plot also involves a female deputy director at the FBI who is assigned to work with Vail – a part that that has not yet been cast.

Butler, repped by CAA and Alan Siegel Entertainment, will next be seen in Coriolanus and Machine Gun Preacher, both of which are playing the upcoming Toronto International Film Festival.

Boyd is repped by ICM, while Weg is repped by UTA.

It's now on JJ:

http://justjared.buzznet.com/2011/08/08/gerard-butler-books-the-bricklayer-role/

Gerard Butler Books 'The Bricklayer' Role

Gerard Butler has reportedly signed on to star in the FBI thriller, The Bricklayer.

The 41-year-old actor is set to play “a rogue former agent who’s called in to help battle a criminal group that is demanding an escalating series of multi-million dollar ransom payments,” THR reports.

Gerard will also co-produce the film, which will be based off the best-selling novel by former FBI agent Noah Boyd.

The book’s plot also involves a female deputy director at the FBI who is assigned to work with the main character but that role has not yet been cast.

ARE YOU EXCITED to see Gerard Butler in The Bricklayer?

http://www.comingsoon.net/news/movienews.php?id=80860


Gerard Butler Takes The Bricklayer


Gerard Butler is set to headline a feature adaptation of Noah Boyd's novel The Bricklayer, says a story at The Hollywood Reporter. Released early last year, the novel is officially described by the publisher as follows:

"The Bricklayer" is the pulse-pounding novel introducing Steve Vail, one of the most charismatic new heroes to come along in thriller fiction in many years. He's an ex–FBI agent who's been fired for insubordination but is lured back to the Bureau to work a case that has become more unsolvable—and more deadly—by the hour.

A woman steps out of the shower in her Los Angeles home and is startled by an intruder sitting calmly in her bedroom holding a gun. But she is frozen with fear by what he has to say about the FBI—and what he says he must do. . . .

A young agent slips into the night water off a rocky beach. He's been instructed to swim to a nearby island to deposit a million dollars demanded by a blackmailer. But his mission is riddled with hazardous tests, as if someone wanted to destroy him rather than collect the money. . . .

Vail has resigned himself to his dismissal and is content with his life as a bricklayer. But the FBI, especially Deputy Assistant Director Kate Bannon, needs help with a shadowy group that has initiated a brilliant extortion plot. The group will keep killing their targets until the agency pays them off, the amount and number of bodies escalating each time the FBI fails. One thing is clear: someone who knows a little too much about the inner workings of the Bureau is very clever —and very angry—and will kill and kill again if it means he can disgrace the FBI.

Steve Vail's options —and his time to find answers—are swiftly running out.

Hanna Weg, who wrote the planned Zelda Fitzgerald biopic, The Beautiful and the Damned, will adapt the novel for the screen.

http://movies.about.com/b/2011/08/08/gerard-butler-to-star-in-the-bricklayer.htm


Gerard Butler to Star in The Bricklayer
By Rebecca Murray, About.com


Former FBI agent Noah Boyd's* novel The Bricklayer is set to become a feature film with Gerard Butler signing up to star in the project set up at Millennium Films. The Hollywood Reporter says Butler's also producing The Bricklayer with Alan Siegel and Danielle Robinson.

From the publisher's official site: "People are dying . . . Each victim has been a thorn in the side of the FBI, and, inexplicably, domestic terrorists who claim to be anti-Bureau are claiming responsibility--and threatening more murders if their huge financial demands aren't met.

The trap has been set. The Bureau's best agents attempt to follow the detailed demands of the blackmailers, only to be drawn into intricate mazes which are ingeniously riddled with hazards, ensuring that no one will emerge alive. The FBI has used every technological secret at their disposal to beat the killers at their game--and they have failed.

The clock is ticking. Deputy Assistant Director Kate Bannon knows that the solution will not be found by following the rules. It's time to call in someone from her past, someone who has routinely handled the impossible--a loose cannon ex-agent fired for insubordination but still the very best she has ever seen.

It's time to call in Steve Vail . . . The Bricklayer."

Butler will star as Steve Vail with Hanna Weg adapting Boyd's novel. There's no word yet on who will play Kate Bannon or who will direct the thriller.

Butler recently completed work on Ralph Fiennes' directorial debut, Coriolanus, as well as the romantic comedy Playing the Field. And he'll be seen on the big screen in September starring in Machine Gun Preacher directed by Marc Forster (Quantum of Solace, The Kite Runner). Machine Gun Preacher's debuting at the Toronto Film Festival next month.

* Noah Boyd is a pseudonym

I posted about this author and the character back in Feb. when it was reported that Gerry had made an offer on the book.

More info on the character and author here:

https://gerrybutlerspantry.aforumfree.com/t2565-gerry-made-offer-on-noah-boyd-book-future-project

Full article here:
http://thefilmstage.com/news/brit-marling-in-talks-for-the-company-you-keep-gerard-butler-starring-in-the-bricklayer/

Quote :

After that, THR tells us that Gerard Butler will be starring in The Bricklayer, which is based on the novel by Paul Lindsay (written under the pseudonym of Noah Boyd), a former FBI agent. This will have him starring as “a rogue former agent [named Steve Vail] who’s called in to help battle a criminal group that is demanding an escalating series of multi-million dollar ransom payments.” Also involved in the story is “a female deputy director at the FBI who is assigned to work with Vail,” but this part has yet to be cast. The movie will be written by Hanna Weg, with the actor, Alan Siegel, and Danielle Robinson producing, and Millennium Films being behind it.

Butler is someone who I tend to like onscreen, but the past few years haven’t been too kind to him in terms of his career. The Ugly Truth, Law Abiding Citizen, The Bounty Hunter, and a few others have made things kind of rough to watch. The great buzz he’s getting for Machine Gun Preacher indicates that he could stage a minor comeback soon, and this also seems to have more potential than what he’s been doing as of late. That’s not saying much, yes, but if he has to take somewhat small steps on the way back to respectability, it’ll still be worth any wait.

Are you a fan of either Marling or Butler? Do these movies sound interesting choices to you?

http://www.firstshowing.net/2011/gerard-butler-going-rogue-in-an-adaptation-of-the-bricklayer-novel/


Gerard Butler Going Rogue in an Adaptation of 'The Bricklayer' Novel

We'll likely hear more about Gerard Butler when two of his performances are seen on screen in Coriolanus and Machine Gun Preacher, both of which will hit at the Toronto International Film Festival next month (keep an eye out for Alex's coverage of the fest). But now THR says the actor is taking another gig as The Bricklayer in an adaptation of Noah Boyd's novel of the same name. As a supposed former FBI agent, the author paints a unique and intricate fictional tale about a rogue former agent who’s called in to help battle a criminal group that is demanding an escalating series of multi-million dollar ransom payments.
Here's a slightly more detailed account of Boyd's novel:

A mysterious organization calling itself the Rubaco Pentad is blackmailing the FBI. If the Pentad’s demands for money are not met, high-profile victims will die. Each demand is bigger than the last, and the drop-off instructions are lethally complicated—it’s almost as if the Pentad wants the FBI to fail. But when an agent disappears with the cash he’s carrying, he needs to be found, and fast. One thing is clear: someone who knows a little too much about the inner workings of the Bureau is very clever —and very angry—and will kill and kill again if it means he can disgrace the FBI. The FBI pins its hopes on former agent Steve Vail, who quit rather than compromise his rigid personal code and is now working as a bricklayer.

Sounds like quite a smart thriller, and hopefully, with his aforementioned festival bound films, will help him recover from the disaster that was The Bounty Hunter with Jennifer Aniston. Since making a huge splash in 300, Butler hasn't exactly made the best choices in roles ranging from disappointing turns in The Ugly Truth to the over-the-top action packed Neveldine and Taylor flick Gamer. However, Law Abiding Citizen was quite a compelling thriller, even if it jumped the shark a bit in the third act. Hanna Weg is scripting the film, but I can't speak to her talents on the page since her work has yet to be seen on the big screen. Here's hoping this turns out to be as intriguing a thriller as the synopsis makes it out to be.

http://www.empireonline.com/news/story.asp?NID=31710



Gerard Butler Becoming The Bricklayer
In a new thriller

09 August 2011 | Written by James White | Source: The Hollywood Reporter


No, Gerard Butler hasn’t decided that acting in dodgy rom coms is such a gruelling experience that he wants to give up the acting lark and switch to life on a building site – he’s signed on to star in the adaptation of thriller novel The Bricklayer.

Written by former FBI agent Paul Lindsay – who publishes under the name Noah Boyd – The Bricklayer features a rogue former bureau-man-turned-construction type who is called him by his ex-colleagues to help stop a criminal group that is demanding increasingly high series of ransom payments. He works alongside a female deputy director of the FBI, and that part will no doubt be handed to some big name actress. Hopefully not Katherine Heigl or Jennifer Aniston…

Millenium Films nabbed the rights to the book, which hit the shelves early last year. Enigma screenwriter Hanna Weg has been hired to pen the adaptation. There’s no word on a director or start date yet.

And Butler has been breaking free of fluffy film hell recently, with the likes of Coriolanus and Machine Gun Preacher both on the way.

http://geektyrant.com/news/2011/8/8/gerard-butler-set-to-star-in-fbi-thriller-the-bricklayer.html



Gerard Butler set to Star in FBI Thriller THE BRICKLAYER

300 star Gerard Butler has been cast in the lead role of a new film adaptation of the Noah Boyd novel The Bricklayer. Millennium Films just acquired the right to the FBI thriller which follows a "rogue former agent who’s called in to help battle a criminal group that is demanding an escalating series of multi-million dollar ransom payments." The author of the book is actually a former FBI agent, Boyd is a pseudonym used by former FBI agent Paul Lindsay. Hanna Weg (Enigma) was hired to adapt the novel for the big screen.

The story follows a character named Steve Vail, a former FBI agent, who is working as a Chicago bricklayer. The agency asks him to help track down and fight against a criminal gang. There's also a female deputy director that is assigned to work with Vail on his new mission.

This is a perfect movie for Butler to be a part of, I can easily see him in a role like this. The movie has potential, I like these kinds of films so if it's done well it could be awesome.

Here the official description of the book:

Someone gives you a dangerous puzzle to solve, one that may kill you or someone else, and you're about to fail. . . . And there is no other option. No one who can help. No one but the Bricklayer.

The Bricklayer is the pulse-pounding novel introducing Steve Vail, one of the most charismatic new heroes to come along in thriller fiction in many years. He's an ex–FBI agent who's been fired for insubordination but is lured back to the Bureau to work a case that has become more unsolvable—and more deadly—by the hour.

A woman steps out of the shower in her Los Angeles home and is startled by an intruder sitting calmly in her bedroom holding a gun. But she is frozen with fear by what he has to say about the FBI—and what he says he must do. . . .

A young agent slips into the night water off a rocky beach. He's been instructed to swim to a nearby island to deposit a million dollars demanded by a blackmailer. But his mission is riddled with hazardous tests, as if someone wanted to destroy him rather than collect the money. . . .

Vail has resigned himself to his dismissal and is content with his life as a bricklayer. But the FBI, especially Deputy Assistant Director Kate Bannon, needs help with a shadowy group that has initiated a brilliant extortion plot. The group will keep killing their targets until the agency pays them off, the amount and number of bodies escalating each time the FBI fails. One thing is clear: someone who knows a little too much about the inner workings of the Bureau is very clever —and very angry—and will kill and kill again if it means he can disgrace the FBI.

Steve Vail's options —and his time to find answers—are swiftly running out.

Noah Boyd's The Bricklayer is written with the bracing authenticity only someone who has been a crack FBI investigator can provide. And in this masterful debut Boyd has created a mind-bending maze of clues and traps inside a nonstop thrill ride that is sure to leave readers exhilarated and enthralled.

http://www.totalfilm.com/news/gerard-butler-is-the-bricklayer


Gerard Butler is The Bricklayer
Set to star in FBI thriller

The news that Gerard Butler is starring in a film called The Bricklayer initially conjures up the prospect of a ghastly, seventies sex comedy in which a leering Butler double-entendres his way through the bedrooms of a string of bored housewives.

Now we’ve planted that rather unpleasant image in your minds, you’ll be happy to know that The Bricklayer is in fact an action-packed thriller, in which a former FBI agent returns to the bureau in order to help combat a gang with ever increasing ransom demands.

The film is based on the novel of the same name by former FBI agent Noah Boyd, and Butler has reportedly signed on to play lead character Steve Vail.

The title refers to Vail’s new line of civilian work, so expect at least one scene in which Butler works up a sweat with his shirt off, before being called back to duty by his old employers.

The script is currently being adapted by Enigma writer Hanna Weg, with no director attached as yet. Next to be cast will likely be a female deputy director at the FBI, who ends up tasked to work with Vail following his return to work. Sexual chemistry ahoy…

Source: THR

Excited by The Bricklayer, or should Butler stick to the dodgy rom-coms? Let us know.



Read more: Gerard Butler is The Bricklayer | TotalFilm.com

Cinemablend article:

http://www.cinemablend.com/new/Gerard-Butler-Signs-On-For-FBI-Thriller-The-Bricklayer-26108.html

Gerard Butler Signs On For FBI Thriller The Bricklayer

Where exactly do you place Gerard Butler on the Scale of Badass? Sure the guy has movies like 300 and Rocknrolla under his belt, but romantic comedies like The Bounty Hunter and The Ugly Truth have taken him down a few notches. Butler is the kind of guy you want to see chomping on a cigar and carrying a machine gun through the apocalyptic wasteland, not sitting down in a restaurant making jokes with Jennifer Aniston. Fortunately his newest project sounds more like the former than the latter.

According to THR, the Scottish actor is now attached to star in The Bricklayer. Adapted from the book by Noah Boyd (real name Paul Lindsay), the film will see Butler play a retired FBI agent named Steve Vail who is working as a bricklayer in Chicago when he is called back into duty when a gang of criminals begins "demanding an escalating series of multi-million dollar ransom payments." Butler will co-star alongside an actress who plays the deputy director at the FBI and works as Vail's partner (though the role has not yet been cast). Hanna Weg, who wrote the upcoming Zelda Fitzgerald bio-pic The Beautiful and the Damed, is adapting the screenplay and Mark Gill, the new president of Millennium Films will oversee the project as his first for the studio.

Gerard Butler is a solid actor, but his project selection as of late has been quite dismal. It feels like it's been forever since we've seen a great live-action Gerard Butler movie, so hopefully this will be the one that gets him back on the right track

Thanks Dallas!

What a mammoth job, Dallas. Thanks for staying on top of the story.

It's a relief to know he has another job.

I wonder how long it will be before it goes into pre-production. It sounds like the script hasn't been written yet.

http://www.ticklethewire.com/2011/09/03/paul-lindsay-ex-detroit-fbi-agent-and-prolific-author-of-7-novels-dead-at-68/

Paul Lindsay; Ex-Detroit FBI Agent and Prolific Author of 7 Novels Dead at 68

Paul Lindsay, the hard-digging FBI agent who became a prolific author, and wrote seven novels — the last two of which were N.Y. Times best sellers — died peacefully Thursday night at a Boston hospital of pneumonia with his family by his side. He was 68.

The ex-Marine, who friends kidded was a cop trapped in an agent’s suit, was known for his dogged pursuit of criminals, his sharp wit and sometimes a lack of patience for management.

Lindsay graduated from MacMurray College in 1968 and served a tour of duty in Vietnam as a Marine Corps infantry officer, according to his website. In the Marine Corps, he was a Company Platoon Commander who was awarded two Purple Hearts and the Silver for bravery, according to the family.

He later joined the FBI and worked in the Detroit office for 20 years. He lived in Rye, N.H.

He authored his first book at the tail end of his FBI career, which stirred controversy in the FBI because it was a thinly veiled novel that took shots at some folks in the agency.

He went on to write six other books. And just last month it was reported that Millenium Films had acquired the rights to “The Bricklayer”, his best-selling novel penned under the pseudonym Noah Boyd, according to the Hollywood Reporter.

Book was written under the pseudonym Noah Boyd
The report also noted that Scottish actor Gerard Butler is supposed to star in the film as a rogue former agent who’s services are needed to battle a criminal group that’s been demanding multi-million dollar ransom payments.

Friends and family said that Lindsay died due to complications from pneumonia.

He had been diagnosed in 2005 with a blood cancer that compromised his white blood cell count, the possible result of his exposure to chemical defoliates when he served in the Marines in Vietnam, the family said.

The condition eventually left him with compromised immune system, which made it difficult to fight off infection. The family said he kept his condition secret from everyone but his immediate family and one friend.

“He never wanted anyone to feel sorry for him or treat him differently–he never permitted himself that luxury,” his family wrote in an email to friends.

In part of a memoir the family shared with friends, Lindsay wrote:

“I am dying. A single cell, damaged and then mutated, is now multiplying at a Pandorian rate through my bloodstream. The aberration was triggered, from best guesses, by Agent Orange, the defoliant dumped so generously-18,000,000 gallons or so–on Vietanam to help keep American troops alive. An irony that is life itself.

“For me, it was over forty years ago. The medical term is Chronic Lyphocytic Leukemia, or to those of us on more intimate footing, CLL. The disease has reached stage four, and unfortunately there is neither a cure nor a stage five.

“. . . I have been the recipient of a great deal of luck in my life. But as John Steinbeck wrote in The Pearl, ‘Luck, you see, brings bitter friends’.”

“Recent events have made it apparent that good fortune is nothing more than a temporary statistical anomaly, which given enough time has little choice but to swing in an opposite and equal arc. In my case, leukemia. Given the extraordinary adventure my good luck has provided to my years, I can offer no complaint about the pendulum’s final resting place.”

His family concluded the email by saying: ”Our Father will be missed, loved and remembered.”

Funeral services will be held at the Robert K. Gray, Jr. Funeral Home 24 Winnacunnet Road, Hampton, N.H. Saturday morning, Sept. 10 at 10 a.m.

Family and friends are invited to call to the funeral home on Friday 2:00-4:00PM and 7:00-9:00PM.

Interment will be at Arlington National Cemetery, Arlington, Va.

In his memory contributions may be directed to: The Wounded Warrior Program

R.I.P.