Sam Riley, Ray Winstone, Mickey Rourke and Jason Statham will star in a remake of Géla Babluani's russian roulette-based thriller, a 2005 Sundance favourite. From Ingmar Bergman's Smiles of a Summer Night to Michael Cimino's The Deer Hunter, russian roulette has often provided film-makers with a ready-made mechanism for creating high drama. Now Sam Riley, Ray Winstone, Mickey Rourke and Jason Statham are to star in a remake of a French film about an underground den where the deadly game is played for cash.

According to Variety, 13 is based on the 2005 Sundance favourite 13 (Tzameti), which won the jury prize for world cinema at the US festival. The Guardian's Peter Bradshaw described it as "not just an accomplished arthouse film, but an unendurably tense thriller".

Ray Winstone and Ray Liotta have joined Mickey Rourke, Jason Statham, Sam Riley and 50 Cent will star in 13, an English-language remake of the 2005 French film 13 Tzameti, reports Variety.

Gela Babluani, who wrote and directed the original, has penned the script and will direct a film that begins production in New York on Nov. 20.

Riley (Control) plays the title character, a young man who stumbles into an underground competition where the wealthy gamble on human beings in a Russian Roulette-like competition.