After getting back on their feet, Hammer Films has be trucking along moving up from an internet-based series (Beyond the Rave) to making brand new feature films. Today some huge news was announced via Variety that Academy Award winner Hilary Swank (The Reaping) has been set to topline Hammer’s THe Resident, a few teased a few months back. Beyond the break you’ll find the full details, along with the first story points.
Hilary Swank will star in “The Resident,” a thriller set to shoot next May under the reconstituted Hammer Films banner.
Antti J. Jokinen will make his feature directing debut from a script he co-wrote with Robert Orr. Erin Cressida Wilson (“Secretary”) recently turned in a rewrite.

The pic, which will shoot on the East Coast, is fully financed by HS Media, the Cyrte Investments-backed parent company of Hammer and Spitfire Pictures.

Swank will play a doctor who moves into a Brooklyn loft. Becoming suspicious that she’s not alone in her new home, she discovers her landlord is a stalker.

Hammer co-CEOs Simon Oakes and Nigel Sinclair will produce with Guy East, who’ll broker worldwide territories through Exclusive Film Distribution. Tobin Armbrust, Alex Brunner, Tom Lassally and Swank will be exec producers. A domestic distribution deal will likely be done before the film starts production.

Jokinen, who hails from Finland, has directed videos for Will Smith, Beyonce, Eminem, Korn and Celine Dion, and is co-founder of Solar Films, Finland’s largest TV and film producer. He’s also directed and co-written several TV series back home.

“The Resident” is the second production since Hammer relaunched, as the label just wrapped the low-budget thriller “The Wake Wood” in Ireland.

Swank will next star opposite Richard Gere and Ewan McGregor in Fox Searchlight’s “Amelia” in the Tony Goldwyn-directed “Betty Anne Waters.”