Company Town : ‘Money Train’ Running on Time for Fall ’95 Release

Producer Jon Peters’ “Money Train” is on track, which is good news for beleaguered Sony Pictures.

The company’s Columbia Pictures unit confirmed that actor Woody Harrelson climbed on board the $40-million action film Monday. Shooting for the film, whose release is planned for next fall, will start in December.

Harrelson, who was represented by Creative Artists Agency, will again team up with actor Wesley Snipes. The two previously starred in the hit “White Men Can’t Jump.”

Joseph Ruben, whose credits include “Sleeping With the Enemy” and “The Good Son,” will direct.

Producing with Peters will be Neil Canton, brother of Mark Canton, chairman of Columbia TriStar Motion Picture Cos. Fred Pierce is executive producer.

The announcement is an important morale booster for Columbia, which trumpeted the development as part of its continuing effort to convince Hollywood that it is breaking out of a gridlock in getting projects moving. Tracy Barone, who heads the creative end of Peters’ operation, called the Snipes-Harrelson pairing “an explosive combination.”

“Money Train” is about two cops who grew up together in a foster home. They eventually decide to rob the subway train that carries the money collected from each station. Columbia President Lisa Henson described it as something of a “modern-day stagecoach robbery.”

“Money Train” is one of the high-profile Peters projects Sony Pictures is following through in making. Peters served briefly as co-chairman of Sony Pictures from 1989 to 1991, before he returned, with a Sony deal, to producing. In March, he returned to Warner Bros., where he and former partner Peter Guber had produced the hit “Batman” after Sony gave him the freedom to work at other studios.