Oscar-winning writer/director Paul Haggis (Crash) sure seems to like prisons. His thriller The Next Three Days, which sees Russell Crowe trying to break his wife out of the clink after she’s accued of murder, hits cinemas early next year, and now Deadline reports he’s eyeing an adaptation of the Spanish language prison-set movie, Celda 211.
CBS film is putting together a deal for the rights, with Haggis sniffing around to direct the project, which is described as feeling like Die Hard in prison. While The Next Three Days is about someone on the outside trying to help a prisoner get out, Celda 211 (which will, of course, be called Cell 211 in the new version), involves a slightly different problem.
A newly hired prison guard wants to make a good impression on his bosses, and he leaves behind his pregnant wife and comes in a day early to get a tour of the facility. When a brutal prison riot breaks out, he is knocked unconscious and when he awakens, the guard is forced to assume the role of a prisoner alongside the most dangerous killers alive. He tries to defuse the uprising and escape before the prisoners realise who he really is.
It’s not the most original of premises, but Celda 13 swept the Goya Award, the Spanish equivalent of the Osacars, so may serve as a good inspiration. Whether Haggis will actually make the movie is difficult to tell. He’s already got a lot on his plate, such as a proposed movie version of The Equaliser, so may not have time to squeeze this one in.