To take on the roles of battling billionnaire kingpins in Relativity Media's new thriller “Paranoia”, the filmmakers knew they would need two actors capable of embodying brilliant, eccentric, hugely ambitious men whose unbridled thirst for power has made them capable of menace and even murder. They found that in the explosive pairing of Academy Award® nominated actors Gary Oldman and Harrison Ford.

The two first worked together on the hit thriller “Air Force One,” with Ford playing the U.S. President and Oldman the relentless Russian terrorist who hijacks his plane. In “Paranoia,” however, they would both be challenged by characters unlike any they have taken on in their diverse careers – men who once wanted to change the world with life-altering technology but have fallen into an obsessive, cat-and-mouse game to one-up each other.

“It was like a dream to put these two back together again,” muses producer Alexandra Milchan. “Their characters couldn’t be more different and yet Harrison and Gary are alike in many ways. They are both equally funny, charming, extremely smart and generous. They both really loved the characters they were playing, even though they are villains, and they both understood the source of their greed and their desire to play God with the universe around them to a certain degree.”

“Harrison walks, talks, and feels like integrity personified – the very ideal of an upstanding American leader like his character, Jock Goddard – which makes his turn to the dark side in `Paranoia' so compelling,” notes producer William Johnson. “It was equal parts pleasure and terror to watch him seduce and destroy.”

Oldman was drawn right away to the screenplay. “It plays like a thriller, but it’s got a twist that I didn’t see coming,” Oldman notes. More than that, Oldman quickly developed his own personal take on his character, Nicolas Wyatt, as one of the self-made industrialists of the digital era. “I play Nick as a guy who is working-class, self-taught, and a former whiz kid who has a real flair for technology,” he explains. “The character was originally an American but I presented to Robert a trans-Atlantic ex-pat who has found success here. It adds an interesting dynamic to things.”

Wyatt has indeed found success in America, the kind of head-spinning success only the very elite will ever taste, which was a lot of fun for Oldman to jump into. “I said to Robert at one point, ‘you’ve fulfilled all my dreams of driving a Bentley, wearing wonderful suits and stepping out of my own private helicopter,’” Oldman muses.

Oldman was especially thrilled to create the explosive collision between Wyatt and Goddard with Harrison Ford – and he says that Ford took him by surprise. “I was really impressed,” he says. “It’s kind of a different character for him and he did some really fine work.”

Says Ford in turn of Oldman: “I’ve always enjoyed watching Gary no matter what he is doing. Wyatt is a fascinating, bitter, angry character, who believes my character, Goddard, would never be the success he is without him. Working with him made the whole thing great fun.”

Ford was drawn not only to reuniting with Oldman but to the rich themes of “Paranoia.” “I see it as a cautionary tale of a young man led by blind ambition into a trap,” he says.

The filmmakers gave Goddard and Wyatt contrasting, individual styles, right down to their cars. But the real sparks emerged from whenever Oldman and Ford were on set together. “What was interesting to me is that both these great actors are quite unassuming and gentle when you meet them,” observes Luketic. “But as soon as the word action is called they turned into these incredible forces.”

Opening across the Philippines on Oct. 2, “Paranoia” is distributed by Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures International through Columbia Pictures.

The two most powerful tech billionaires in the world will stop at nothing to destroy each other, in Relativity Media's new thriller “Paranoia.” A bright, young rising star, seduced by unlimited wealth and power falls between them, and becomes trapped in the middle of the twists and turns of their life-and-death game of corporate espionage.

Directed by Robert Luketic (“21”), “Paranoia” stars Liam Hemsworth (“The Hunger Games”), Harrison Ford (“Indiana Jones” film series) and Gary Oldman (“Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban”).

“Paranoia” began with Joseph Finder’s New York Times best-selling techno-thriller novel of the same name. The book hit upon what would soon become some of the biggest questions of our times: Has corporate power grown out of control? Where is the line between mining digital data and dangerous, invasive surveillance? What happens when CEOs operate outside the law? – all in a fast, intense read. Finder encountered a world where multi-nationals now have more riches and wield more political influence than entire nations.

“As I was researching the novel, I started thinking what would happen if a corporation needed a piece of transformational technology that they knew their competitor had? How far would they go to get it? That’s how I came up with Adam Cassidy,” Finder explains. “In some ways, he’s the classic guy who is forced into being a spy. But his story also takes on the whole idea of identity, about people forming relationships that are based on falsehoods and impersonation, about conscience and about doing the right thing – all of which is happening underneath the fun and suspense.”

The filmmakers started talking about the story not only in terms of an edge-of-your-seat corporate thriller pitting two ferociously competitive billionaires against each other but also as a young man’s search for identity in an age when identity is completely changeable from instant to instant, when technology leaves us feeling watched even in our most personal moments, and when the future couldn’t be more uncertain. They saw Adam Cassidy (Liam Hemsworth) on the brink not only of the most extreme personal danger but also of a cultural shift.

Director Robert Luketic, too, was excited by this idea – and by the suspense of the story. “It’s a very timely tale that speaks to this new generation of Millennials who feel they’ve had their dreams stolen away – but I also love that it’s just so entertaining. It has a lot of thrills and it has characters who are great fun to watch.”

The director was especially intrigued by the challenge of mirroring the title and capturing the paranoia of modern life, in which cameras are in every pocket, our daily data is being analyzed by companies and government agencies, all countered by the fact that what was once private info is now displayed on YouTube, Facebook and Twitter.

“Adam is in the world where we all live now – a world that is all about data mining, and where everyone leaves all kinds of trails they don’t even realize they are leaving,” Luketic notes. “Never before in history have we had so much of ourselves so accessible to the world. That was a lot of the inspiration for what we present on the screen. Ultimately, nowhere is safe for Adam because there is nowhere he can hide out of view. He is being surveyed from cameras hidden in walls and people are tracking him through his phone. It goes to the question of whether there’s a danger to having all this information about ourselves out there for the taking.”

Opening across the Philippines on Oct. 2, “Paranoia” is distributed by Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures International through Columbia Pictures.

The high stakes thriller "Paranoia" takes audiences deep behind the scenes of global success to a deadly world of greed and deception. Hitting Philippines cinemas this October, “Paranoia” stars Liam Hemsworth (“The Hunger Games”), Harrison Ford, Gary Oldman, Amber Heard (“Zombieland”), Josh Holloway (TV's “Lost”) and Julian McMahon (“Fantastic Four”).

In the film, the two most powerful tech billionaires in the world (Ford and Oldman) are bitter rivals with a complicated past who will stop at nothing to destroy each other. A young superstar (Hemsworth), seduced by unlimited wealth and power falls between them, and becomes trapped in the middle of the twists and turns of their life-and-death game of corporate espionage. By the time he realizes his life is in danger, he is in far too deep and knows far too much for them to let him walk away.

"I'm a pawn in a master plan. And as it starts to get deeper and more dangerous, it's clear this fancy life is not what I thought," says Hemsworth.

Ford says he buzzed his hair "to the shortest possible" length to play his high-flying character. "The look was something I had not had before. And I thought it added strong character value."

Director Robert Luketic says word of the iconic actor's short 'do "made a lot of people nervous" before he showed it on the set. "Are you kidding?" says Luketic. "But I had complete faith in him. I am all for it when an actor wants to embrace the character. And he pulled it off. He looks really good in the movie and he brought his acting A-game."

Ford relished the opportunity to re-tangle with Oldman; the duo memorably collided in 1997's “Air Force One.”

"There is a real contest of wills between the two of us here," says Ford of “Paranoia,” adding that the film's title is appropriate for the high-stakes business empire. "It's a world that is well served by being even more paranoid than the characters actually are."

Opening across the Philippines on October 2, “Paranoia” is distributed by Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures International through Columbia Pictures.