Hammer Nails the Horror Genre Again - this time, it's 'blacklisted film' GASLIGHT
EXCLUSIVE MEDIA’S HAMMER PRODUCTION LABEL ACQUIRES RIGHTS TO BLACKLIST SCREENPLAY ‘GASLIGHT’HAMMER TO DEVELOP AND PRODUCE THE HORROR FEATURE FILM
Los Angeles, CA (February 8, 2012) – Iconic production company Hammer, an Exclusive Media company, has acquired the rights to GASLIGHT, an original screenplay written by newcomer Ian Fried, it was announced today by Simon Oakes, Vice-Chairman of Exclusive Media and President & CEO of Hammer, and Guy East and Nigel Sinclair, Co-Chairmen of Exclusive Media. Hammer will develop and produce GASLIGHT for the big screen. The screenplay landed on Hollywood’s Blacklist of the best unproduced scripts in 2011 and is an atmospheric thriller in the vein of FROM HELL meets THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS. Secretly imprisoned in a London insane asylum, the infamous Jack the Ripper helps Scotland Yard investigators solve a series of grisly murders whose victims all share the iconic death brand: dual puncture wounds to the neck.
Tobin Armbrust, President of Worldwide Production & Acquisitions of Exclusive Media, Hammer’s parent company, will oversee the project for Hammer. Armbrust commented, “Ian's script is an atmospheric thriller that reads like a Gothic SILENCE OF THE LAMBS. He does a fantastic job of weaving iconic characters into a plausible and entertaining story.” The project was brought to Exclusive Media by the company’s Creative Executive, Jennifer Ruper. Ian Fried is currently writing an original supernatural action project called SPECTRAL for Legendary Pictures. His previous script, THE EVER AFTER MURDERS, featuring fairy tale characters investigating murder scenes, also landed on Hollywood’s Black List in 2010. Fried is repped by Daniel Cohan and Mike Esola at WME, Prolific Entertainment and attorney Eric Suddleson.
Hammer most recently produced the chilling ghost story THE WOMAN IN BLACK starring Daniel Radcliffe that opened this weekend in the US taking over $21m at the US box office. Hammer’s adaptation of Susan Hill’s classic novel, starring Daniel Radcliffe, opened on almost 3000 screens through CBS Films with a per screen average of approximately $7,400, and also took the number one position in the Canadian box office. This weekend’s three day gross makes The Woman in Black the highest opening ever for a Hammer film in the US and one of the very few British films that has broken the $20m opening weekend threshold. Directed by James Watkins and adapted by Jane Goldman from the book by Susan Hill, THE WOMAN IN BLACK is a Hammer, Alliance Films, The UK Film Council presentation, in association with Cross Creek Pictures.