Jean-Francois Richet Tapped To Direct Top 10 Black List Script ‘Pox Americana’

EXCLUSIVE: Jean-Francois Richet, whose two-part gangster epic Mesrine was nominated for 10 French Cesar awards — winning three, including Best Actor for Vincent Cassel and Best Director for Richet — has been tapped to direct Pox Americana for CODE Entertainment. The Frank John Hughes-scripted Pox Americana made the top 10 on the just-published 2013 Black List and tells the story of an Army officer and an Indian scout in the New Mexico Territory in the 1850s who are sent by the U.S. President to lead a special ops team to assassinate the head of the Navajo nation.

CODE Entertainment is fully financing the movie, which will start production in 2014 and is currently casting.  The company is in post-production on The Forger, starring John Travolta, Christopher Plummer and Tye Sheridan, and is in prep for Mission: Blacklist, starring Twilight’s Robert Pattinson.

CODE’s Al Corley, Bart Rosenblatt and Eugene Musso are producing; Hughes will also produce. Jonathan Dana will executive produce along with Erik Jendresen and his Pilothouse Pictures.  Richet also directed Assault On Precinct 13 which starred Ethan Hawke and Laurence Fishburne. Hughes and Richet are repped by UTA.