'The Raid' Director Gareth Evans to Helm Period Thriller 'Apostle' (Exclusive)

XYZ Films is handling foreign sales and will introduce the project to buyers at AFM.

The director of hit Indonesian martial arts film The Raid and its sequel has landed his next project.

Gareth Evans will write and direct period thriller Apostle, about a mysterious man who travels to a remote island in search of his missing sister.

In the film, the man attempts to rescue his sister after she's kidnapped by a religious cult, which is demanding a ransom for her return. But it soon becomes clear that the cult will regret the day it baited this man, who digs deeper and deeper into the secrets and lies upon which the commune is built.

XYZ Films, Severn Screen and Evans' One More One Productions will produce the project, with XYZ, which is handling international sales, introducing it to buyers at AFM in Santa Monica. The film is eyeing a March 2017 start of production in the U.K.

Apostle is a reunion between Evans and XYZ, which produced and handled international sales on both The Raid and its sequel, The Raid 2. Evans rose to fame after he wrote and directed the 2011 action film that starred Iko Uwais. It was praised for its inventive action sequences and thrilling scenes, and was acquired for the U.S. by Sony Pictures Classics. The sequel, also written and directed by Evans, was released in 2014. Evans, who also is attached to MRC's film Blister, is repped by WME and Management 360.

At AFM, XYZ also is handling sales on Baltasar Kormakur’s Icelandic thriller The Oath, which recently premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival; Anders Walters’ feature debut I Kill Giants, starring Zoe Saldana and Imogen Poots; and Craig Zahler's Brawl at Cell Block 99, starring Vince Vaughn and Don Johnson.