HONG KONG – Production finally got underway today in Thailand on Bold Films’ action thriller “The Coup.”

Starring Owen Wilson, Pierce Brosnan and Lake Bell, the film centers on an American family who move to Southeast Asia and find themselves entangled in a violent coup in which merciless rebels attack the city.

John Erick Dowdle is directing from a screenplay he co-wrote with Drew Dowdle.

Producing for Bold Films are Michel Litvak and David Lancaster as well as Drew Dowdle. Andrew Pfeffer and Gary Michael Walters are executive producing with Chris Lowenstein of Thailand’s Living Films, co-producing.

The film was brought to market and substantially pre-sold at Cannes 2012.

For Lancaster “The Coup” is a speedy return to Thailand. He previously worked on Ryan Gosling starrer “Only God Forgives” which lensed in the country in early 2012.

“We welcome the production to Thailand. This once again shows that whether comedy, drama or high action, Thailand has the facilities and resources to provide the quality of teams and production resources that Hollywood demands,” said Ubolwan Sucharitakul, Director of the Thailand Film Office.

Including commercials and short films, Thailand has hosted over 500 foreign productions per year since 2009. This year inbound productions are expected to reach record levels and surpass 700.

Pierce Brosnan has been busy — and may have a new franchise in “November Man,” which is in post-production. It’s one of 10 titles that the Solution Entertainment Group is offering for foreign sales at the American Film Market, where Solution will unveil a new promo to buyers.

Brosnan’s production company Irish DreamTime announced the project last year at Cannes as the launch title in a multipicture financing and distribution deal with Solution. “November Man” centers on an ex-CIA operative who is brought back in on a personal mission and finds himself pitted against his former pupil in an operation involving high-level CIA officials and the Russian president-elect.

“After Pierce had finished with Bond, he wanted to do something edgier and darker, and Dino Conti, a longtime producer at MGM, had always urged me to get ‘November Man,’ ” said Beau St. Clair, Brosnan’s longtime producing partner.

The development money was raised last year through Solution, Myles Nestel and Lisa Wilson’s sales-financing banner. Das Films funded development and The Solution secured the financing.

Brosnan is working on another project for sale via Solution at AFM — the romancer “How to Make Love Like an Englishman.”

“It’s set in L.A., so we shot it in L.A.,” St. Clair said. “We could have saved money if we had shot in New Orleans or Wilmington, but it would not have looked like L.A. So we thought it would be better to work with a lean, lean budget and shoot here instead of trying to fake it in some place like Vancouver.”

St. Clair said the budget was $30 million when the project was first developed in 2006. “It’s a lot less now,” she added.

Brosnan is also shooting action-thriller “The Coup” with the Dowdle brothers in Thailand and then “I.T.,” in which he’ll play a successful book publisher pitted against a young disgruntled I.T. consultant.