After Wolverine, James Mangold Likely To Direct Icelandic Drug Drama City State

Walk the Line and Knight & Day director James Mangold’s currently immersed in pre-production on The Wolverine, the Marvel sequel he plans to shoot with Hugh Jackman in the lead. But the filmmaker is already thinking about his next inevitable project, and he’s warming up to a foreign drug thriller titled City State that he hopes to develop and direct, according to Deadline.

Icelandic writer-director Olaf de Fleur Johannesson’s original City State, released overseas earlier this year, follows four strangers occupying Iceland’s criminal underworld who find their lives connected once a mafia syndicate moves in a tries to take over Iceland’s drug trade. The characters in Johannesson’s story include a dirty cop who’s romancing a prostitute; an aging kingpin with a serious ailment who’d like to get out of the drug trade; a vengeful mechanic devastated by the death of his unborn child; and a female police officer who responds to an attack and decides its time to get in the game and possibly bring the quarrel to an end.

Add City State to the growing list of foreign films receiving American remakes. Off the top of my head, I can think of David Fincher’s anticipated The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, the French action film Sleepless Night, the TIFF fan favorite The Raid, and the Argentinian thriller The Secret In Their Eyes.

I’m sure I’m forgetting others. And I’m not necessarily arguing this is a bad trend. These are excellent stories, and if they reach larger audiences thanks to American remakes, all the better. I’m more interested to see where Mangold goes with Wolverine, but if City State ends up being his follow-up project, I’m on board.