Babak Najafi has found the leads for his next film! The Cinemaholic can confirm that Kiefer Sutherland and Jean Reno will star in the thriller film ‘The Floris,’ AKA ‘The Florist.’ Principal photography for the project will begin in December 2024. Eran Creevy and Scott Windhauser wrote the screenplay. The plot centers on Carl Rikker, an introverted, quiet horticulturalist who loves his day job but holds a dark secret. At night, he moonlights as a ruthless assassin. His identity is threatened when he forms an unlikely friendship with a witness to police corruption.
Kiefer Sutherland is no stranger to the thriller genre, having played significant roles in films like ‘A Time to Kill’ (Freddie Lee Cobb), ‘Phone Booth’ (The Caller), ‘The Vanishing’ (Jeff Harriman), ‘The Reluctant Fundamentalist’ (Jim Cross), and ‘The Contractor’ (Rusty Jennings). In television, we have seen him as the Housing and Urban Development Secretary-turned-POTUS (President of the United States), Thomas Kirkman, in the political thriller ‘Designated Survivor,’ and counter-terrorist federal agent Jack Bauer in the action thriller series ’24,’ for which he won a Golden Globe and a Primetime Emmy. We last saw him as Larry Lasker in Clint Eastwood’s legal drama ‘Juror No. 2,’ which follows a juror (Nicholas Hoult) stuck in a dilemma that will affect the verdict of a high-profile murder case.
Jean Reno is a familiar face in English films, having given us characters like Léon from ‘Léon: The Professional,’ Vincent from ‘Ronin,’ Philippe Roaché from ‘Godzilla,’ Enzo Molinari from ‘The Big Blue,’ Police Captain Bezu Fache from ‘The Da Vinci Code,’ and Desroche from ‘Da 5 Bloods.’ He played Reinaldo Gómez de la Cortina in the Netflix series ‘Who Killed Sara?’ In French cinema, he is known for his portrayal of Pierre Niemans in Mathieu Kassovitz’ ‘Crimson Rivers,’ Godefroy de Montmirail in Jean-Marie Poiré’s ‘Les Visiteurs,’ and Victor “The Cleaner” in Luc Besson’s ‘La Femme Nikita.’ His latest outing was as Gilbert Vassier in Netflix’s French fantasy adventure movie ‘Family Pack.’ It follows the Vassier family that ends up in an alien world of werewolves after playing a mysterious board game.
Babak Najafi has a handful of action movies to his name, including the Gerard Butler-starrer ‘London Has Fallen’ (the sequel to Antoine Fuqua’s ‘Olympus Has Fallen’), the Taraji P. Henson-starrer ‘Proud Mary,’ and the Joel Kinnaman-starrer ‘Easy Money II: Hard to Kill.’ He also directed multiple episodes of the Cinemax action drama ‘Banshee,’ starring Antony Starr.
Read More: Jessica Yu to Direct ‘Get Us Home’ Next
