Shia Has the ‘Eagle Eye’
DreamWorks is reteaming “Disturbia” star Shia LaBeouf and director D.J. Caruso for “Eagle Eye,” a thriller that will shoot in the fall.
LaBeouf, who stars in the Michael Bay-directed DreamWorks/Paramount actioner “Transformers,” is finalizing a deal to play a young slacker whose overachieving twin brother has died mysteriously. When the young man returns home, both he and a single mother find they have been framed as terrorists. Forced to become members of a cell that has plans to carry out a political assassination, they must work together to extricate themselves.
Dan McDermott penned the script based on an original idea by Steven Spielberg; Hillary Seitz is rewriting. “Transformers” scribes Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci, who are based at DreamWorks, will produce.
Studio bought the McDermott script several years ago, and Spielberg originally planned to direct. Busy with “Indiana Jones 4,” the film that teams LaBeouf with Harrison Ford, Spielberg dropped out. He turned to Caruso, a director with whom he first worked on “High Incident,” the 1996 series Spielberg exec produced; that led to Caruso directing “Disturbia.”
“Disturbia” grossed nearly $80 million domestically, and both LaBeouf and Caruso have been in high demand. Caruso, who had been flirting with several film projects, including the Fox-based “X-Men” spinoff “Wolverine,” sparked to the chance to reprise with LaBeouf.
Project also reteams LaBeouf with Kurtzman and Orci, who have landed their second significant producing deal in the last week after “Cowboys & Aliens.” That live-action adaptation of the graphic novel is being mounted by Imagine Entertainment as a co-production of DreamWorks and Universal.
