Randall Wallace is set to direct the action-adventure thriller The Swiss Guard off his screenplay. Cameras will roll this fall in Rome, and casting is already underway.

The project is set in the modern-day Vatican and centers around a plot to kidnap the newly installed Pope who has committed himself to total reform of the Church and its finances. When a corps of assassins enter the Vatican, all that stands between them and their mission is a woman, the first female Swiss Guard, who has just
been summoned by the Pope to help him confront a mysterious past and a dangerous future.

Wallace will also produce along with Bruce Hendricks, former President of Production at The Walt Disney Studios. Steve Beeks, the former co-President of Lionsgate Motion Picture Group, will serve as EP. Clair de Lune Films is pic’s principal financier.

Wallace said, “The Swiss Guard is exactly the kind of movie I want to make and want to see…a thrilling story about ultimate courage and love. I’m honored to be teaming up with people of such professionalism and integrity, and for the faith shown by Clair de Lune in our mission.”

Wallace received an Oscar nomination for his original screenplay of Mel Gibson’s five-time Oscar winning Best Picture Braveheart.

Among Wallace’s directing credits are We Were Soldiers, Secretariat and Heaven is For Real. His writing credits include the WWII epic Pearl Harbor. His most recent
screenplay, The King, will star Dwayne Johnson with Robert Zemeckis attached to direct.

Wallace is repped by attorney David Nochimson. Hendricks, who recently acquired the Stanley Kubrick story Lunatic At Large, is repped by the Gersh Agency and Industry Entertainment. Clair de Lune Films is repped by attorney Chris Spicer at Akin Gump LLP.