Danish film-maker Billie August has begun filming Moviefan Scandinavia's Return To Sender, the long gestating project from Bond screenwriters Robert Wade and Neal Purvis, in Denmark.

The $7m Danish-UK thriller, which is being produced by Michael Lunkerskov and executive produced by Stephen Woolley, stars Aidan Quinn, Connie Nielsen and Kelly Preston.

The pair, who scripted The World Is Not Enough, Die Another Day, Johnny English and are now working on Bond 21, first wrote the US-set drama script in 1995.

Wade, who with Purvis is also taking a co-producer credit, told ScreenDaily.com: "It's about a lawyer [Quinn] who goes off the deep end defending people on death row. It concentrates on that whole world of the death penalty. We are very please to have Billie on board."

Quinn plays the lawyer, while Danish expatriate Nielsen is the woman on death-row he falls in love with.

"We're not making a political film as such, but I don't think anyone will leave the cinemas untouched by this story about a society where the thirst for vengeance is so great and the ability to forgive so small, that you have to have a death penalty," Bille August told local media.

The film received DKR3m from the Danish Film Institute, and will later move on to Ohio for location work.

UK director Aisling Walsh, who collaborated with Michael Lunderskov on Song For A Raggy Boy, had earlier been in talks to direct.