AFM: Milla Jovovich to Star in Action-Thriller ‘Protector’ (Exclusive)

Resident Evil star Milla Jovovich is set to headline Protector, a Taken-esque action thriller that Highland Film is pitching to buyers at this year’s American Film Market. Adrian Grünberg (Rambo: Last Blood, Get the Gringo) is set to direct from a screenplay by Bong-Seeb Mun. Production is slated to begin this winter in New Mexico.

The film’s log line has Jovovich playing Nikki, a former war hero who believed she had left her violent past behind to raise her daughter, Chloe, in peace. When she wakes up in an abandoned factory and learns that Chloe has been kidnapped, Nikki has navigate the city’s criminal underworld, pursued by both the cops and the military, to get her daughter back.

Protector is one of a slew of action projects heading to AFM this week as producers double down on a return to shoot-’em-up thrillers.

Kenneth Kim, Bang-Ok Joo and Bong-Seeb Mun are set to produce for Aanaxion Studio, together with Arianne Fraser and Delphine Perrier for Highland Film Group. Martial artist and stunt coordinator Ho-Sung Pak (Transformers: Age of Extinction, Bullet Train) is also attached as a producer and the film’s stunt coordinator. Highland Film Group is co-financing the project and will handle worldwide rights.

Jovovich will next appear in Paul W.S. Anderson’s In the Lost Lands, alongside Dave Bautista. She is represented by CAA, Untitled Entertainment and Hansen Jacobson.4o mini.

Highland Film Group’s current slate also includes Chuck Russell’s Witchboard, Justin Chadwick’s Sierra Madre and Joe Carnahan’s Not Without Hope.