Cillian Murphy and Jamie Dornan seem to have a taste for the war movie after their time together on last year’s Anthropoid. The pair are teaming up yet again for Jim Sheridan’s H-Block which also has Pierce Brosnan locked in talks to join the project.
Related: Cillian Murphy and Jamie Dornan on Anthropoid
H-Block will be based on the true story of the Maze Prison escape, which was known as The Great Escape when the story broke in Northern Ireland. Murphy stars as the head of the ring of IRA prisoners who has earned the respect of the prison guards but now just wants a life of peace. Dornan takes on a role in which many of his adoring female fans will not be used to seeing from the Fifty Shades actor. He will be playing an IRA Prisoner who starts discovering weaknesses in the prison. He also is one of the last IRA prisoners to agree to the escape — but leave he does and with a vengeance on the way out.
Brosnan’s role, if he signs on the dotted line, would be that of a prison warden who has to go up against the escaped prisoners, so a bit of a scary outing for this once Bond actor.
We can expect to see some pretty gruesome scenes in Sheridan’s H-Block; this real life action drama which was used as propaganda material by the IRA was a horrendously violent prison break. Thirty-eight prisoners escaped from H-Block with only 19 recaptured. One officer died of a heart attack after being stabbed, whilst another four were also stabbed. In all, twenty were injured including being stabbed or shot; one prison officer was shot in the head but survived. The escape also included hostage taking and ended up being the biggest in both British and Irish history.
The project which was originally penned by Tony Devilin and Gavin McCloskey is being given a make-over by Sheridan and Nic Sheff to make it shooting script ready and has Dylan Sellers down to produce after overseeing the production of last year’s Southpaw.
