Mike Fleming

EXCLUSIVE: Wayfare Entertainment has pre-emptively purchased Inquest, a spec by Sam Cohen. It’s sure to raise a ruckus over its premise, that the death of Princess Diana might have been premeditated. Based on true events, the political thriller is about a London investigator who’s hired to discover whether her death was a tragic accident or something more. When he begins to uncover a conspiracy, the gumshoe’s own safety is compromised. This possible version of events feeds into a theory that Princess Diana’s death was similar to whether Lee Harvey Oswald had acted alone or was part of a larger conspiracy in the murder of President John F. Kennedy, which was covered in film with Oliver Stone’s JFK.

This whole sale was a bit shrouded in intrigue. Sam Cohen isn’t the writer’s name. I’m told it’s Josh Simon, a former studio exec who worked in the strategic planning group and as a development exec at Disney and later the DreamWorks-based Color Force, run by former Disney topper Nina Jacobson. This is his first feature sale, though he previously sold a scripted TV project to FX along with Noah Oppenheim. READ MORE »