Keanu Reeves will star in $25m (€18.4m) action-thriller Cartagena from Nick Wechsler Productions, 2929 Productions and Gaumont, who will also handle international sales.

The film, to be directed by Rupert Wyatt, will see Reeves as an undercover agent in Colombia who becomes embroiled in a conspiracy involving drug dealers and international agents.

It will shoot in early September for delivery in late 2010 and is said to fall somewhere in between French Connection and Michael Clayton. The other major roles are being cast.

CAA packaged and arranged financing for Cartagena and is representing North American rights.

Also new to Gaumont’s slate is Nicolas Boukhrief’s Sphinx, a thriller starring Cecile De France, Fred Testot and Julien Boisselier that will be ready for Berlin. The film follows two rank-and-file police officers who lose their badges when they are wrongly accused of excessive use of force and set out to prove their innocence. Images will be available in Cannes.

The French major will also screen the first images from Joel Schumacher’s Twelve with Chace Crawford, Kiefer Sutherland, Emma Roberts and 50 Cent. Further, a promo reel of The Last Flight starring Guillaume Canet and Marion Cotillard will also be shown.