Fast and Furious star Paul Walker has signed on to play the lead role in a film titled Hours, which will be the the directorial debut of The Thing co-writer Eric Heisserer.
The film has been described as a “post-Katrina dramatic thriller” that details Walker’s character as “a young father fighting to keep his newborn daughter alive in an abandoned New Orleans hospital after Hurricane Katrina.” Hours will be financed by Safran Company and is scheduled to begin filming this March in New Orleans.
With the film starting production in March, it has put some doubt in Walker’s potential involvement in Fast and Furious 6 and 7. The next installments in the Fast and Furious franchise are due to film for the majority of 2012, leaving us all guessing if Hours will rule Walker out of one or both of the films.
Hopefully there will be no scheduling conflicts and Walker can wrap the New Orleans production before heading off to Europe too film the new Fast and Furious films.
We’ll keep you updated when we know more.