The Pin's Ben Ashenden & Alexander Owen pen Amazon film Deep Cover
- Ben Ashenden and Alexander Owen have written action comedy film Deep Cover for Amazon Prime Video
- The feature is about improv actors who infiltrate London's criminal underworld, with shooting beginning on Monday
- Starring Orlando Bloom, Bryce Dallas Howard, Sean Bean, Nick Mohammed and Ian McShane, the film is directed by Ghosts' Tom Kingsley
Sketch comedy duo Ben Ashenden and Alexander Owen, AKA The Pin (pictured), have written their cinematic screenwriting debut, Deep Cover, an Amazon Prime Video action comedy about improv actors infiltrating London's criminal gangs.
Starring Orlando Bloom, Bryce Dallas Howard, Sean Bean and Nick Mohammed, the film is helmed by Ghosts and Stath Lets Flats director Tom Kingsley, and begins production in the capital on Monday.
The key cast is completed by Lovejoy's Ian McShane, Paddy Considine (The Death Of Stalin) and Crazy Rich Asians' Sonoya Mizuno.
The plot follows "three improv actors hired by the police to help stage low-level stings. Their instinct to 'always say yes' without breaking character leads them deep inside the London criminal underworld".
Based upon an original script by the Jurassic World team of writer-director Colin Trevorrow, an avowed British comedy aficionado, and his regular collaborator, writer-producer Derek Connolly, it has been adapted for its London setting by Ashenden and Owen, with a release date yet to be confirmed.
The duo acted in Jurassic World Dominion, filmed in the UK, alongside Dallas Howard and fellow comedians Ahir Shah and Freya Parker. They have also appeared together in Ghosts, Judd Apatow's lockdown comedy movie The Bubble and an episode of Mohammed's Sky spy sitcom Intelligence.
"We're delighted to be bringing this new action-comedy to our customers," Tushar Jindal, head of content, U.K. for Prime Video, said. "With an incredible cast, a top-class creative team and a fantastic script we know it's going to be a hit."
Trevorrow is producing the film through his own Metronome Film Company, alongside Walter Parkes and Laurie MacDonald. Annys Hamilton is co-producer.
Ashenden and Owen met while studying at Cambridge University and took the name The Pin from the title of a show they performed in 2011 in their final year with Mark Fiddaman. After appearing several times at the Edinburgh Fringe, they made four series of a Radio 4 sketch show, also called The Pin, between 2015 and 2019.
In 2020, they wrote and starred in West End play The Comeback as a bickering double act, with the production attracting critical acclaim, and were writer-producer-performers on Dave's 2022 behind-the-scenes comedy Live At The Moth Club.