It’s been nearly ten years since Layer Cake, the film that arguably directly led to Daniel Craig being cast as James Bond. Though a sequel is belatedly in the works it will no longer be Craig playing the unnamed gangster. Instead we will get Jason Statham.
Statham, along with producing partner Steve Chasman, has bought the rights to Viva La Madness, the follow-up novel by Layer Cake author J.J. Connolly. Connolly will write the screenplay, as he did for Layer Cake.
There will be a bit of mild tinkering required to tie the two films together, since the novel and film of Layer Cake ended in slightly different ways. In the film – spoiler – the narrator, a drug dealer trying to make his way out of the crime world, was shot and his fate left uncertain. In the book he was shot and went into a coma, but then relocated to Venezuela. Viva La Madness has the narrator living in the Caribbean but with an old associate trying to tempt him back to the world of crime.
Sequel enthusiast Statham recently completed filming on The Expendables 3 and is currently working on Fast & Furious 7.