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Warner Bros Makes 7-Figure Deal For Seth Grahame-Smith Novel ‘Unholy Night’

By MIKE FLEMING JR | Thursday December 1, 2011 @ 1:37pm PSTTags: David Heyman, David Katzenberg, Greg Silverman, Joe Eszterhas, Mel Gibson, Michael Green, Seth Grahame-Smith, Steven Spielberg, Stuart Hazeldine, Tim Burton, Timur Bekmambetov, Warner Bros
Mike Fleming

EXCLUSIVE: Warner Bros has made a whopping deal to acquire screen rights to Unholy Night, the new novel by Seth Grahame-Smith. Grahame-Smith will write the script, and he and KatzSmith partner David Katzenberg will produce with Heyday Films’ David Heyman and Jeffrey Clifford. I’ve heard that the deal is in the vicinity of $2 million upfront for the rights to the book and for Grahame-Smith to adapt it. The studio got first look at the book, as both KatzSmith and Heyday are based at Warner Bros. That is where Heyman produced the Harry Potter film series and where Grahame-Smith scripted the Tim Burton-directed Dark Shadows. Unholy Night, an action/adventure surrounding the Three Wise Men of the Nativity, will be published in April by Grand Central.

Setting up a film based around the birth of Jesus Christ gives Warner Bros its third high-profile movie based on a seminal religious story. The studio has been discussing the possibility of Steven Spielberg directing Gods And Kings, an epic-sized film about the life of Moses scripted by Michael Green and Stuart Hazeldine. And Warner Bros recently set up a project being scripted by Joe Eszterhas and Mel Gibson (who has first option to direct) about the heroic story of Jewish warrior Judah Maccabee, who teamed with his father and four brothers to lead the Jewish revolt against the Greek-Syrian armies that had conquered Judea in the second century B.C. Maccabee’s triumph and struggle against tyranny and oppression where people gave their lives so that others would be free to worship is celebrated by Jews all over the world through Hanukkah, the Festival of Lights. READ MORE »

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Warner Bros Re-Ups Greg Silverman As President Of Production

By MIKE FLEMING JR | Wednesday November 2, 2011 @ 2:30pm PDTTags: Greg Silverman, Jeff Robinov, Warner Bros
Mike Fleming

BREAKING: Warner Bros Pictures production president Greg Silverman has re-upped for another term with the studio, it was announced by Warner Bros Pictures Group president Jeff Robinov. Silverman, who signed on for another three years (his deal was up at … Read More »

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Ben Affleck To Direct Matt Damon And Casey Affleck in Whitey Bulger Mobster Saga

By MIKE FLEMING JR | Monday October 24, 2011 @ 10:37am PDTTags: Ben Affleck, Casey Affleck, Greg Silverman, Matt Damon, Stephen King, Terence Winter, Whitey Bulger
Mike Fleming

BREAKING: Ben Affleck and Matt Damon are reuniting in their first real picture partnership since  Good Will Hunting. The Boston guys are taking on the story of New England’s most notorious gangster, Whitey Bulger. Warner Bros will make the film, Affleck will direct, co-star and produce with Damon, who’ll play Bulger. They’ll produce under their Pearl Street Films banner. Boardwalk Empire creator and writer Terence Winter is penning the script. Casey Affleck, who also starred in Good Will Hunting and Gone Baby Gone, will play a supporting role as well.

“Matt and I have been looking for something to do together for some time,” Affleck said. “We’ve heard about Whitey Bulger since we were kids, and we are excited by the prospect of putting it on screen.” Ironically, Damon played a crooked cop in The Departed, the Martin Scorsese-directed film that took a page from the Bulger story. He is the notorious South Boston crime boss who fled in 1994 and remained a fugitive for 16 years — 12 of them on the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted List. He was arrested in June in Santa Monica. The story will cover Bulger’s youth to his incarceration on Alcatraz, through his rise to become a mob boss while secretly serving as an FBI informant for decades. Pearl Street’s Chay Carter will be executive producer. Read More »

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KatzSmith Duo Makes First-Look Warner Bros Deal; Will Bring ‘Beetlejuice’ Back From Dead

By MIKE FLEMING JR | Tuesday September 6, 2011 @ 10:20am PDTTags: Alec Baldwin, Craig Gillespie, David Katzenberg, Greg Silverman, Jeffrey Katzenberg, Johnny Depp, Michael Cera, Michael Keaton, Seth Grahame-Smith, Tim Burton, Timur Bekmambetov, Winona Ryder
Mike Fleming

EXCLUSIVE: KatzSmith Productions partners David Katzenberg and Seth Grahame-Smith have just signed a two-year first-look feature producing deal at Warner Bros. While rights are still being worked out, one of their first projects is expected to be a sequel to … Read More »

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Ben Affleck To Turn French-Flavored Harlan Coben Novel ‘Tell No One’ Into Feature

By MIKE FLEMING JR | Wednesday June 15, 2011 @ 10:37am PDTTags: Alex Kurtzman, Ben Affleck, Frank Marshall, Greg Silverman, Guillaume Canet, Kathleen Kennedy, Luc Besson, Roberto Orci, Universal Pictures International, Warner Bros
Mike Fleming

EXCLUSIVE: Harlan Coben, one of the biggest-selling mystery writers in America, is finally in line to have one of his books made into a major Hollywood film. And all he had to do was make a detour through France.

Warner Bros and Universal Pictures have optioned rights to Coben’s thriller Tell No One. Ben Affleck is attached to direct, and the script will be written by Chris Terrio. Terrio scripted Argo, the film Affleck is preparing to direct next for Warner Bros. Kathleen Kennedy and Frank Marshall will be the producers. The studios will co-develop the picture, with Warner Bros releasing domestically and Universal Pictures International launching it overseas. The deal involves Luc Besson’s EuropaCorp, and that’s where the French connection comes in. The new project is basically a remake of the French film adaptation of Coben’s book, which was directed by Guillaume Canet.

Coben originally set up his book at Sony Pictures in 2002. The studio hired Star Trek scribes Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci, no less. Coben has a page-turning writing style, but his mysteries aren’t seamless screen transitions. It never quite came together and Sony let it go. Canet then got involved, figured out how to make the premise work, set it up at EuropaCorp and turned it into French film. The plot involves a pediatrician who is out one night frolicking by a lake with his wife when she suddenly vanishes and he is severely beaten when he tries to find her. When she turns up murdered, he is prime suspect. That’s until she’s declared a victim of a caught serial killer. Years later, bodies turn up in the same spot and the nightmare is repeated, the pediatrician again under suspicion. Right around that time, he’s given evidence that his wife wasn’t dead at all. Canet managed to make all of that work, anchored by the fact the protagonist never got over the death of his wife. Sarah Schechter and Greg Silverman are running the project for Warner Bros, and Adam Yoelin is steering it for Kennedy/Marshall. Read More »

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Warner Bros Closed To Pitches Until 2011?

By NIKKI FINKE, Editor in Chief | Thursday October 21, 2010 @ 6:56pm PDTTags: Greg Silverman, Movies, Warner Bros

UPDATE: So here’s what happened and why both sides are accurate. Warner Bros’ Greg Silverman, who’s in charge of the film development budget, told his group that he wanted to focus on specs rather than pitches and hiring new … Read More »

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