Taylor Kitsch is set to play a Texas prison boss facing a hostage taking drama in Eleven Days, a new thriller directed by Peter Landesman.
Set in 1974 and based on a real-life prison uprising, Kitsch will take the role of Jim Estelle, the head of the Texas Department of Corrections, attempting to end a hostage taking in the Huntsville Penitentiary led by heroin kingpin Federico Carrasco as part of an escape plan gone wrong.
Estelle has to lead crunch negotiations with the hostage takers and their ruthless leader to end the tense siege drama. “Lines between captor and captive, justice and survival, begin to blur as the siege spirals for eleven endless, terrifying days,” a synopsis from the film’s producers reads.
The screenplay is by Kevin Sheridan, with revisions by Landesman. Eleven Days is based on the book Eleven Days in Hell: The 1974 Carrasco Prison Siege at Huntsville, Texas, by William T. Harper. The film’s production is scheduled to take place in Texas in September, with Vincent Newman and Vance Howard serving as producers.
Kitsch recently starred in Netflix’s American Primeval limited series and will also appear in the upcoming prequel series Dark Wolf, a spinoff of The Terminal List series in which Kitsch played the character Ben Edwards. Other credits include Only the Brave, opposite Josh Brolin, Miles Teller, Jeff Bridges and Jennifer Connelly, as well as the TV movie The Norman Heart for HBO, where he starred alongside Mark Ruffalo and Julia Roberts.
Landesman’s film credits include Concussion, the 2015 football drama about player brain injuries that starred Will Smith, Parkland and Kill the Messenger.
Kitsch is represented by Untitled Entertainment and WME.