Kelly Reilly Takes Flight

With Robert Zemeckis sitting in the director’s chair and Denzel Washington confirmed as the lead, drama thriller Flight is now getting set to head down the runaway ready for take off. And now the film has a female lead in the shape of Sherlock Holmes’ Kelly Reilly.

She’s in negotiations to play Nicole Devlin, a young woman battling drug addiction, who meets an airline pilot named Whip (Washington). He’s being hailed as a hero for saving 106 people by safely landing a damaged plane. But his actions are clouded by an investigation into whether he was drinking at the time. As the pair tries to confront their demons, they become friends.

Reilly won the job over the likes of Olivia Wilde and Moon’s Dominique McElligott. Aside from playing Mary Morstan in Holmes (and its sequel, A Game of Shadows, which is due in cinemas on December 16), Reilly won acclaim for her work in horror thriller Eden Lake.

Zemeckis, working from a script by Real Steel writer John Gatins, is preparing to pull the chocks away and start cranking the cameras on Flight next month.(Empire Online)