Bid to make 2007 West Cork drug bust a movie starring Cillian Murphy

He’s the 2005 elephant polo world champion; he was Ireland’s first ever competitor in the Sumo world championships in Japan; he holds the world-record for the three-legged marathon in Cork, and founded the whacky Paddy Games.

Now, Irish-born solicitor and adventurer Colin Carroll has turned screenwriter and launched a quest to transform his award-winning screenplay, Just Ryan, inspired by the biggest drugs bust in Irish history, into a big-screen, action-thriller blockbuster.

“It’s like the Irish James Bond,” Carroll said yesterday from Paris, where he is on the European film festival circuit, and chasing leading directors.

His fast-paced crime thriller, which has been likened to the Bourne series, was inspired by the botched attempt to land some €440m worth of cocaine at West Cork’s Dunlough Bay in 2007.

And after four years in development, Just Ryan has won the award for Best Unproduced Script Based on Action and Adventure at the prestigious Madrid International Film Festival.

And on the back of the film festival award, Carroll has launched a quest to convince a leading director to take on his script.

He has investors waiting in the wings and hopes to line up meetings with leading French directors, including Luc Besson. Oliver Marchal and Pierre Moral, who directed Besson’s first Taken movie, starring Liam Neeson. Carroll said he has his sights set on three of Ireland’s top actors: Michael Fassbender, Colin Farrell and Cillian Murphy, to take the lead roles. “I think Cillian Murphy... could get this over the line,” he said. ‘Calvary’ in strong US debut

The critically-acclaimed Irish film, Calvary, starring Brendan Gleeson, has had a strong opening weekend at the US box office.

Following on from its €1.6m Irish haul earlier this year, John Michael McDonagh’s Irish Film Board funded-movie took an average of $18,000 (€13,500) per US screening — the highest for any independently released film in the US at the weekend, reported indiewire.com.

USA Today described Gleeson’s performance as “brilliant in its blend of compassion, weariness, humility and faith”.

The LA Times said: “Calvary reveals itself over and over to be a movie of such surprises, a serious-minded, lightly comedic rumination on life, death, faith and community.”