Week in Review...
Tony Scott is in talks to direct the romantic thriller DEJA VU for producer Jerry Bruckheimer and Disney. The screenplay by Terry Rossio and Bill Marsilii centers on an FBI agent who travels back in time to save a woman from a murder and falls in love with her in the process.
Zack Snyder has come aboard to develop and direct RAINBOW SIX, based on the Tom Clancy novel, for Paramount Pictures. The story centers on a CIA operative who leaves the agency to create a British-based antiterrorism squad.
Crossroads Films has optioned the memoir ALL SOULS: A FAMILY STORY FROM SOUTHIE, Michael McDonald's account of growing up in the Irish projects of South Boston in the 1970s. The project is being developed in association with Ron Shelton, who also will direct.
Skander Halim (PRETTY PERSUASION) will write and direct the horror thriller THE PERFECT GHOST. Project follows a girl who is terrorized by ghosts. The film is being produced by Tapestry Films and Gibralter.
Director Matthew Vaughn has abandoned his plans to remake THE MAN FROM U.N.C.L.E. but will instead develop it as an original spy project screenplay with writer John Hodge for Warner Bros.
Cristi Limm will write an untitled romantic comedy for Disney from her own pitch about a woman who dreads Valentine's Day. Limm's pitch was based on a concept by Joe Farrell.
Joel Bergvall and Simon Sandquist (THE INVISIBLE) are set to direct FEAR ITSELF for Intermedia. It's a supernatural thriller about a detective who finds a string of victims murdered under circumstances dictated by their worst fears. Tony Jaswinski has been tapped to rewrite the script.
Mark Waters will direct its remake of THE SECRET LIFE OF WALTER MITTY for Paramount, Samuel Goldwyn Jr. and John Goldwyn. Richard LaGravanese scripted.
Bennett Yellin and James Johnston will write the horror screenplay LET'S SCARE JESSICA for Paramount and CFP Prods. Story centers on a fearless young man at a college in Colorado who, while pledging a frat, must prove his allegiance to the house by scaring his girlfriend into believing the college is haunted. The prank then takes on a life of its own.
Mike Mendez (THE CONVENT) is directing the horror/thriller THE GRAVEDANCERS for Code Entertainment. Pic stars Dominic Purcell, Clare Kramer, Tcheky Karyo, Marcus Thomas, Josie Maran and Megahn Perry. Brad Keene and Chris Skinner (PROM NIGHT) penned the script.
Paramount Pictures picked up Neal Marshall Stevens' horror spec script SUPERSTITION and set it up with Radar Pictures and Platinum Dunes. Story, based on the novel by Brit mystery writer David Ambrose, centers on a scientifically conducted seance that draws a deadly ghost who shifts reality to account for its existence.
John Stockwell is set to direct the thriller TURISTAS as his next film for 2929 Entertainment. Josh Duhamel is in talks to play the male lead. Scripted by Michael Ross, the project follows six college students who, while backpacking across Brazil, get stranded in the jungles and imprisoned by a military group with a bloody agenda.
Alberto Negrin is making PERLASCA, a drama about Giorgio Perlasca who was an Italian businessman who passed himself off as the Spanish Consul in Budapest, Hungary, in an effort to save more than 5,000 Jews from Nazi extermination near the end of World War II. The movie is a co-production between Rai Fiction, France 2 and Focus Film. Castle Hill will release it in the U.S.
Animation vet Kevin Munroe has been tapped to write and direct a new CGI-animated TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES for Imagi Services. Currently in pre-production, pic is targeted for release in spring 2007.
James Wong will write and direct a remake of the 1974 horror thriller BLACK CHRISTMAS for producer Glen Morgan, Adelstein/Parouse Prods. and Copperheart Entertainment. and 2929 Entertainment. In the original, a killer terrorizes a sorority house during Christmas break.
Wes Ball is attached to direct the coming-of-age adventureTHE TREEHOUSE, written by Ron Friedman and Steve Bencich, for Warner Bros. and Tapestry Films. Story follows the adventures of a boy who discovers a magical treehouse in his backyard. He's propelled into a forest ruled by children, but woodland creatures invade it and he must fight his way home. It will be a live-action project with CGI animation and effects.
Ben Ramsey will pen an adaptation of the James Patterson bestseller ROSES ARE RED, featuring homicide detective Alex Cross, for Paramount. Plot centers on Cross hunting the Mastermind, the brains behind a series of bank robberies in which employees or family members are held hostage.
Tony Barbieri will direct EM, a love story about the end of a relationship after a suicide attempt, for Freedom Films and Goldenlight Films.
Paramount has bought the family adventure spec script TRUDAIN RISING, written by Scott Sandler, Kane Ng and Dan Hannon, and has set it up with Lorenzo Di Bonaventura and Happy Madison. Story is about a pair of orphaned brothers, the younger of whom discovers he's imbued with supernatural powers from a dwindling race and is besieged by alien assassins.
Alfonso Cuaron is in advanced talks with Fox 2000 Pictures to direct LIFE OF PI, based on the novel by Yann Martel.
Shauna Cross has sold her teen comedy script TAKING 5 to Redbus Pictures. Story concerns two geeky teens who kidnap the world's most famous rock band in an attempt to make them play at their high school and thus boost the girls' popularity. Teek Films will produce.
-Elston Gunn
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