Big Tiger: VMI Takes Luke Goss Manila Action Pic to AFM Sales
- The Scoop: VMI Worldwide has launched international sales at the American Film Market on Big Tiger, a Manila-set action feature starring Luke Goss and Katherine McNamara.
- Cast & Packaging: Keoni Waxman directs a cross-continental ensemble that pairs Goss and McNamara with Byron Mann and Filipino star Alden Richards, who plays crime boss John Lynch.
- Production Status: The Lux Angeles Studios, Birns & Sawyer and Myriad Entertainment production is in post-production, with a 93-minute cut screening for AFM buyers.
- Market Play: The film arrives on the AFM floor as an original, star-driven action title built for international buyers rather than a franchise extension.
VMI Worldwide has launched international sales at the American Film Market on Big Tiger, a Manila-set action feature headlined by Luke Goss and Katherine McNamara.
The project is in post-production and carries a 93-minute running time, with buyers screening the cut on the AFM floor this week.
Manila as a Combat Zone: How Keoni Waxman Is Shooting the Underworld
Director Keoni Waxman, who also wrote the screenplay, builds the film around Chance Ryan, a feared enforcer who has spent eight months locked inside the brutal Big Tiger prison facility.
When a plot against him forces his escape, Chance returns to Angeles City to reunite with May, the woman he left behind, only to find her preparing to marry the man who betrayed him.
That betrayal belongs to John Lynch, the ambitious crime boss who seized control of Chance’s father’s criminal empire, giving the film a personal vendetta spine rather than an abstract chase.
Waxman is a seasoned hand at stripped-down, location-driven action, and the Philippine setting supplies real streets, real heat and real confinement spaces instead of green-screen interiors. Contrast that with Lakadbaggha 2 courting international buyers.
Goss and McNamara Anchor a Cross-Continental Cast Built for Buyers
Goss brings the hard-edged, physically imposing presence that has defined his action work, while McNamara’s May gives the film its emotional leverage and its central romantic stake.
Byron Mann adds heavyweight genre credibility to the antagonist ranks, and Alden Richards takes the John Lynch role as a major international action positioning for one of the Philippines’ biggest stars.
The ensemble is deliberately triangulated across American, Hong Kong and Philippine talent, a casting structure designed to open distribution conversations in multiple territories at once.
Philippine coverage has reported a teaser showing Richards confronting Goss’s character, with Max Collins also appearing in the cast. That footage signals a confrontation-driven marketing hook rather than a plot-heavy sell.
VMI’s AFM Bet: Selling Original Action in a Franchise-Saturated Market
VMI is handling international sales on an original action feature, not a sequel or a franchise entry, which puts the burden of the sell squarely on cast, setting and finished footage.
The production combines Lux Angeles Studios, Birns & Sawyer and Myriad Entertainment, with Matt Macur, Binh Dang, Biajani Marrero, Mari Acevedo, Damien Douglas, Erica Steele and Thomas Walton producing.
Executive producers include Rebecca O’Hara, Steven Fabos, Robert Smith, Alden Richards, Lenny Vitulli, Jon Votta and Vince Votta, with Richards’ stake behind the camera underscoring his investment in the film’s international reach.
Philippine and international release plans are being mapped for 2026, and the AFM launch is a sales-market event, not a consumer date, so the calendar remains a distributor-by-distributor negotiation.
For VMI, the economics hinge on converting a finished 93-minute cut into territory-by-territory deals before the year closes, and every buyer meeting at the market is a direct line to that revenue. Track the rollout across our trade entertainment wire desk.