Shia LaBeouf will star in romantic action project The Necessary Death Of Charlie Countryman for Mandate Pictures.

Lionsgate will launch international sales in Cannes next month. Dante Ariola will direct from an original screenplay by Matt Drake.

Albert Berger and Ron Yerxa of Bona Fide Productions will produce along with William Horberg, while Dean Parisot and Mandate president Nathan Kahane are on board as executive producers.

LaBeouf will portray the titular character, who provokes the wrath of a crime lord when he falls for a certain girl and realises that he may have to resort to drastic measures to save her.

Lawrence Grey will oversee the project on behalf Mandate and the company has fast tracked it for an autumn start.

LaBeouf will next be seen opposite Michael Douglas and Carey Mulligan in Oliver Stone’s Wall Street 2: Money Never Sleeps, which screens out of competition in Cannes. He is currently in production on Transformers 3 for DreamWorks.

Mandate’s senior vice-president of business affairs Dan Freedman negotiated the deals for the company.

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