Altitude will introduce buyers to Benedict Cumberbatch thriller at the EFM

Benedict Cumberbatch is newly attached to star in Sergei Bodrov’s drama Blood Mountain, which Altitude will be shopping at the EFM in Berlin.

The project was written by Jonathan W. Stokes with revisions by John Romano.

Lawrence Bender, Nicola Horlick and James Gibb will produce. Shaun Redick is executive producing alongside Rachel Green of Derby Street Films and Brooklyn Weaver of Energy Entertainment.

Silver Reel will finance the film with executives Claudia Bluemhuber and Ian Hutchinson also serving as executive producers on the project. Skady Lis of Germany’s Getaway Pictures will serve as a co-producer on the film. Getaway Pictures will handle the European co-production of the film with the UK and the US.

Blood Mountain follows a private military contractor whose special forces team is ambushed and killed during a covert raid, forcing him to personally escort one of the world’s most wanted terrorists over hostile terrain in order to bring him to justice.

With a bounty at stake and insurgents and rival mercenaries hunting them, the two find themselves facing not only their enemies but each other in the their fight for survival.

Principal photography is slated to begin in April 2014 in Morocco.

UTA reps North American rights.