Christian Johnston's Complex Films has teamed up with LA and Dubai-based Big Deal Pictures to create action franchise The Blackline International Trilogy.

The films are based on actual events involving private military corporations and will kick off with Blackline: The Beirut Contract, in which a private operatives are sent to rescue a hostage in Lebanon.

Johnston wrote the screenplay and begin shooting Blackline: The Beirut Contract this month in Beirut with additional photography in Paris and Morocco.

Johnston is producing with Nabil Issa and Kirk Hassig. He previously wrote and directed the 2004 Osama Bin Laden thriller The September Tapes.

The two later episodes in the series are being lined up for early 2008 shoots in Russia, Poland and Venezuela.

Each theatrical release in the series will be followed with the same-day release of the DVD and video game.

Johnston's most recent film, Untitled Black Box 2012 Project, recounts the final four days on board a Russian military space station and has been lined up for a theatrical release in early 2008 through Fabrication Films.