Inferno
heats up sales for Whitaker's 'Air'
Company
also pacts for 'Women,' 'Haichiko'
By ELIZABETH GUIDER
Newly
warmed up by a cash injection of $250 million
from an unspecified hedge fund and buoyed by
a co-financing arrangement with Sony, L.A.-based
producer-distributor Inferno unveiled a number
of sales deals here in Cannes.
Most notably, company headed by Bill Johnson
and Jim Seibel inked agreements with a dozen
territories on crime thriller "The Air
I Breathe." Pic is finished and stars Forest
Whitaker and Brendan Fraser. Deals include Pathe
for the U.K., Splendid for Germany and CDI for
Italy. Endeavor's Graham Taylor is handling
domestic sales on the pic.
A remake
of George Cukor's "The Women," which
Diane English is writing and will direct, shoots
in August but has already wrapped deals with
Constantin in Germany, IIF in Italy and On Pictures
in Spain, among others.
And "Haichiko:
A Dog's Story," which days ago announced
that Richard Gere would be involved, has just
begun signing up takers: among them 21 Entertainment
for Russia and Ablo for Eastern Europe.
It's based
on a true story about a loyal dog that awaited
his master through WWII. (A statue of Haichiko
sits in his waiting spot in Tokyo.) The family
drama, which Johnson will produce, is being
made in association with Shochiku in Japan.
Finally,
one project on Inferno's slate is tied up in
litigation: "The Experiment." The
proposed drama, which is based on an actual
experiment in America pitting people put into
a prison and divided into guards and inmates,
has been blocked by a rival.
Seems the
Inferno team was pitched on the idea by the
Germans who made a pic a few years ago called
"Das Experiment." The Teutonic pic
was a dramatization of the actual American experiment.
Guy Ritchie
and Madonna's Maverick Films also pitched Inferno
on the idea, which they apparently want to make
as more of a docudrama. In any case, Inferno
opted to go with the German-inspired project.
Maverick
has sued Inferno; Inferno has countersued; the
whole thing now has a court date next January.
Read the
full article at:
http://www.variety.com/article/VR1117965701.html
