Joey Lawrence-Wesley Snipes action film 'Havana Heat' even crazier/better than we thought!
On Thursday August 19, 2010, 6:00 am EDT

Image Credit: Bob Charlotte/PR Photos; Mark Dye/PR
PhotosIf, like us, you read the Variety headline “Snipes, Lawrence join ‘Havana Heat’” and needed to know more about the indie action film costarring Wesley Snipes and Joey Lawrence shooting this November, prepare to be very happy. Producer James Ordonez, president of Tayrona Entertainment Group, just gave us some serious details about the movie and its efforts to be the next Expendables (yes, offers are out to Chuck (orris and Jean-Claude Van Damme!).
We begin with the plot: “Havana is a mysterious, sensuous city with gorgeous architecture, white Caribbean beaches, hot, pulsating music, vintage American automobiles and some of the most beautiful women in the world.CID Special Agent Sean Franklin [Lawrence] and his partner, gung-ho rookie, NCIS Special Agent Brianna Evans [Fighting's Zulay Henao] are assigned undercover in Havana after another agent is murdered. At the same time, a heavyweight fight between American Ruben Palace and Cuba’s Kid Carlos becomes an international incident when a girl Ruben meets in a salsa club is found dead. Sean and Brenda team up with National Revolutionary Police Force Detective Jose Aguillerra to uncover the mystery behind both crimes.”

Where does Snipes come in? “Snipes plays Major Evans, Sean Franklin’s boss and father of his assigned rookie partner…. Major Evans coordinates all the infiltration operation in Cuba and will engage once he finds out his best man and daughter are in danger,” Ordonez says. What made producers think to pair Lawrence and Snipes? “As a coincidence with The Expendables, Havana Heat was put together as a retro ’80s action all-star movie. We were looking for a very big teen 1990s idol who still is young and fresh to play the lead action role, and Joey Lawrence was the perfect candidate,” he says. “Wesley Snipes is one of the most recognized action stars of all times… so it was perfect to put them together.”

This all-star movie may include Jean-Claude Van Damme. “Raul Julia-Levy, son of late Raul Julia is also part of the cast, and he’s personally convincing Jean-Claude Van Damme to join the cast as well in order to have a major fighting scene that will reprise the final fight between Van Damme and Raul Julia in the 1994 action flick Street Fighter, which was Raul Julia’s final movie,” Ordonez says. Julia-Levy plays a Cuban driver with a secret, and Van Damme is being courted for the role of Mikhail Guzman, a hardcore criminal and human trafficker. Producers are also in talks with Chuck (orris (to play Commander Winston, Snipes’ superior)

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