Still a fighter, but a little different: the actor and creator of “Fauda” Lior Raz has been cast to participate in the film “Gladiator 2”, a sequel to the successful blockbuster from 2000 directed by Ridley Scott (who will also direct the second film) in which Russell Crowe and Joaquin Phoenix starred at the time. The film won five Academy Awards including Best Actor and Best Picture, and two Golden Globe Awards, and also grossed over $460 million.
The plot of the first film takes place in Rome, during the 2nd century. Rez is expected to star in the film alongside Denzel Washington, Paul Mescale, Pedro Pascal, Joseph Quinn, May Calmaway and Matt Lucas, among others. Those who played in the first film and will continue in the second film are Connie Nielsen and Derek Jacobi, who will return to play their original characters. It has not yet been announced which role Lior Raz will play, nor what the name of the new film will be.
More in-
At the end of the week the new series by the creators of Fauda, ”The Ghosts of Beirut” – a four-episode mini-series of the American Showtime network, dealing with the life story of the architect of terror Imad Muraniyeh, one of the biggest terrorists to come out of Lebanon – aired on yes. Muraniyeh was the head of Hezbollah’s military wing, and was killed in the explosion of his car in 2008.
Avi Issacharoff and Lior Raz are behind the series, and it stars two of the former “Fauda” stars – Amir Khoury will play the young Muraniyya and Hisham Suleiman, remembered for his role as “Abu Ahmed” in the first season, will play Muraniyya in his adulthood.
The series presents the story of Muraniyeh from two points of view – the Lebanese and the American – over many years, starting from his beginnings at the age of 21 in the Shiite strongholds in southern Beirut until he became a master of the concept of suicide bombers. The series combines “talking heads” interviews with the participation of the real people who were at the center of the events, prominent CIA and Mossad agents, who will shed light on the cat and mouse games with Muranier and the upheavals of the 1980s in Beirut.
In the main roles: the star of the nineties Dermont Mulroney (“My Friend’s Wedding”) who plays a CIA agent stationed in Beirut in the eighties and is convinced that he will succeed in establishing regional peace, while the CIA agent Lena Esrein will be played by Dina Shihabi (“Jack Ryan”) who captures -2007 an Iranian defector and manages to convince him to tell the story of Moranieh from the beginning. This is how the story of the arch terrorist unfolds before us.
There are also roles in the series for Israeli actors, including the “Beauty Queen of Jerusalem” star Yuval Sharaf (who will play a character named Sarah), Ya’akov Zeda Daniel (“Fauda”, “Alf”) and Michal Moshunov, alongside them are also played the “Homeland” and “Teheran” stars Navid Neghaban, American actor Garrett Dillahunt (“Raising Hope”, “12 Years a Slave”) and British actor Ido Goldberg (“Secret Confessions of a Top Whore”). Documentary director Greg Barker (“The Hunt: To Capture Bin Laden”) directs all four episodes of the series and is also one of its producers alongside Daniel Dreyfus (“There’s nothing new in the West”).
