EXCLUSIVE: Suicide Squad‘s Jai Courtney has been set to star with Nat Wolff in Henry-Alex Rubin’s crime thriller Semper Fi. From Sparkhouse Media and Rumble Films, the project has further added Finn Wittrock, Beau Knapp, Arturo Castro and Leighton Meester. Principal photography starts February 1 in Louisiana. Cornerstone Films is handling international sales with UTA and CAA co-repping domestic.

Murderball director Rubin is helming from a script he wrote with Sean Mullin. The story sees Courtney as Cal, a by-the-book police officer who makes ends meet as a Marine Corps reservist along with his rowdy and inseparable group of childhood friends. When Cal’s younger, reckless half-brother Oyster (Wolff) accidentally kills a guy in a bar fight and tries to flee, Cal forces him to face the music.

After an unfair sentence, Oyster fights for survival in a dangerous Pennsylvania prison system while Cal and his friends are deployed to fight the lethal insurgency in Iraq. Overseas, Cal’s world is shaken, and after he barely makes it home alive, he resolves to break Oyster out of prison — no matter the cost.

American Horror Story’s Wittrock, Sand Castle’s Knapp and Narcos’ Castro are the gang that rally to his side in a bare-knuckled prison break to right the injustice.

Semper Fi is produced by Sparkhouse’s Karina Miller (To the Bone) and Oscar nominee David Lancaster (Whiplash) of Rumble Films. Sparkhouse Media is financing. Cornerstone’s Mark Gooder and Alison Thompson will be talking up the project at the EFM in Berlin next month. The project was first announced in Cannes last year with Sam Claflin attached; he later exited due to a scheduling conflict.

Additional talent lined up for Semper Fi includes cinematographer David Devlin (Monster, Madonna: Rebel Heart Tour), production designer Chris Stull (Machete) and costume designer Christina Flannery (Left Behind).

Courtney is repped by UTA, Mark Morrissey & Associates and Silver Lining Entertainment; Wittrock is with CAA and Weissenbach Management; Castro is repped by WME and Avalon Entertainment; Meester is at UTA; Knapp with CAA and Luber Roklin; and Wolff looked after by CAA, Untitled Entertainment and Definition Entertainment.