George Gallo (Bigger, Middle Men) has signed on to direct the topical, edge-of-your-seat thriller Covet as his next feature film. George is currently in pre-production on The Poison Rose, starring John Travolta and Morgan Freeman. Gallo, who helmed Steve Lee Jones’ Bigger, is pairing again with the Emmy-nominated producer, Jones (You Don’t Know Jack), and Scott LaStaiti (The Infiltrator, Love in the Time of Cholera) on the new project.
Covet is written by Washington, D.C. attorney George Mahaffey, who sold his first script to Paramount. The film centers around a wealthy Persian-Jewish family whose house is invaded by ruthless anti-Immigrant Nationalists, but their attempt on the family goes horribly awry.
Jones says, “Covet cuts deep into the zeitgeist of the current notion of anti-immigration being masqueraded as patriotism. It champions a unique hero who takes on pure evil with a vengeance and delivers an intensity that is hard to find in such elevated genre material.”
Covet is being produced through Jones’ production company Bee Holder Productions, along with Scott LaStaiti and Eric Fischer, and his Triangle Pictures banner. Triangle Pics is the newly formed production division of the financier, Three Point Capital. David Gendron and Ali Jazayeri of Three Point will serve as executive producers. Bee Holder’s executive vice president Camila Castro will also serve as executive producer.
Production is set for September of this year.
Jones and Gallo’s most recent collaboration was on the drama Bigger, which was recently launched for sales at this year’s Cannes Film Market. George Gallo helmed and co-wrote Bigger alongside Andy Weiss (White Boy Rick), Brad Furman (The Lincoln Lawyer) and Ellen Brown Furman (The Infiltrator). Jones and LaStaiti produced the film.
In addition to producing Bigger, Steve Lee Jones is the Emmy nominated producer of HBO’s Golden Globe-nominated You Don’t Know Jack, which won Al Pacino the Golden Globe award for Best Performance by an Actor, and the HBO documentary Kevorkian. Jones’ upcoming projects include the biopic Kimbo about the life of famed MMA fighter Kimbo Slice, and the political thriller Forty-Six.
George Gallo has a writing and directing career that spans more than three decades. Gallo’s credits include Middle Men, starring Luke Wilson and Giovanni Ribisi, which premiered at Cannes in 2009, and Columbus Circle, starring Selma Blair and Amy Smart. Gallo’s writing credits include the hits Bad Boys and Bad Boys II, starring Will Smith and Martin Lawrence, Warner Bros.’ The Whole Ten Yards, starring Bruce Willis, and Universal Pictures’ Midnight Run, starring Robert De Niro.
