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Brendan Fraser and Tom Welling will star in “The Professionals”, based on the film “Soldiers of Fortune”.
The ‘loose remake’ of the 2012 action film – starring Christian Slater – will be produced for Scandinavian SVOD service Viaplay.
In addition to “Doom Patrol” star Fraser and “Smallville” alum Welling, “Wonder Woman”’s Elena Anaya, ”John Wick 3”’s Saïd Taghmaoui, ”Inglourious Basterds”’ Ken Duken, ”Force Majeure”’s Lisa Loven Kongsli and ”Das Boot”’s August Wittgenstein star.
The ten-part English-language series, which has just begun filming in South Africa and Ireland, was commissioned by Viaplay with German broadcaster RTL II pre-buying the free-TV rights.
According to Deadline, who had the scoop :
The Professionals is set against a backdrop of international espionage and corporate sabotage in the 21st century’s privately-funded space race and follow Welling as a hardened former counterintelligence officer Captain Vincent Corbo. After their advanced medical satellite explodes on deployment, billionaire futurist Peter Swann, played by Fraser, and his fiancée, medical visionary Dr. Graciela “Grace” Davila, played by Anaya, turn to Corbo. Corbo assembles a team of experienced professionals to investigate the incident. They learn that any combination of Swann’s business rivals, corrupt governments officials, and a shadowy crime syndicate could be behind the attack and represent a continued threat. Duken plays a Europol agent seeking to thwart the security team’s efforts.
The series was created by Jeff Most, who produced the original feature and such films as “The Crow”, while Bharat Nalluri directs the first three episodes.
“This is the kind of television that couldn’t be more timely or topical as it imagines billionaires using their wealth to deploy private military units to achieve their political and business goals,” said Most.
