Nicholas Hoult, Henry Cavill, and Logan Marshall-Green find themselves under the scorching hot Iraqi sun in today’s first batch of images for Sand Castle, Netflix and Fernando Coimbra’s upcoming wartime thriller
Based on screenwriter Chris Roessner’s own tour of the Iraqi war, Sand Castle promises a tense, Hurt Locker-esque story funnelled through the eyes of three grunts – in this case Hoult, Marshall-Green and the Man of Steel himself – fighting for a cause they don’t quite understand. Cavill is set to take point as the burly Captain Syverson, with Hoult playing the part of Matt Orce, the quasi-surrogate to Chris Roessner in this particular instance.
Little is currently known about the Logan Marshall-Green’s character, but Netflix’s official logline teases an arc that involves our leading trio coming to terms with the “true cost of war,” as they break course to restore a crucial water supply in the war-torn city of Baqubah. Tensions between the locals and American troops are close to boiling point, and it’s this pure, human element to Roessner’s story that attracted Fernando Coimbra in the first place. Sand Castle represents only the director’s second feature film after 2013 festival thriller A Wolf at the Door, but the Brazilian filmmaker is familiar with the Netflix template after helming two episodes of the company’s Narcos series.
Set to deploy sometime this spring, Sand Castle is the latest addition to Netflix’s digital portfolio of original content. Later this year, the online streamer has David Ayer’s fantasy drama Bright in the pipeline, while there’s also Charlie McDowell’s peculiar sci-fi tale The Discovery to look forward to.
