EXCLUSIVE: Wild Bunch’s slate also includes a number of other genre titles plus Jean-Luc Godard’s Goodbye To Language 3D.
Isabelle Fuhrman is set to star alongside Isabelle Huppert, Janet McTeer, Michael Nyqvist and Antje Traue in David Green Green’s upcoming horror picture Suspiria.
Green’s remake of Dario Argento’s 1977 cult horror thriller, about an American student who stumbles on a coven of witches while studying in Europe, will start shooting in September.
Wild Bunch is launching international sales at Cannes. CAA holds US rights.
Fuhrman, known for her role as a deranged adoptee in Orphan and Clove in The Hunger Games, will play Suzie, an ambitious American student who travels to Europe to attend a top academic institution.
After a student is murdered and several other strange deaths disrupt campus life, Suzie begins to suspect there is more to the academic staff than meets the eye.
Crime Scene Pictures’ Adam Ripp and Rob Paris are financing and producing the film alongside the team behind the Tilda Swinton-starring I am Love, Luca Guadagnino of First Sun and Francesco Melzi d’Eril of Memo Films, which acquired the Suspiria remake rights at Cannes in 2007.
Oscar-winning costume designer Milena Canonero is attached alongside longtime Green collaborators, production designer Richard A. Wright and cinematographer Tim Orr.
Suspiria joins four other genre projects on Wild Bunch’s Cannes: Franck Khalfoun’s Maniac, Brian de Palma’s Passion, Vincenzo Natali’s Haunter and Marina de Van’s Dark Touch.
“Our Cannes line-up this year reflects a conscious decision to return to our genre film d’auteur roots. It’s something we wanted to reconnect with,” says Wild Bunch chief Vincent Maraval, referring back to the company’s early titles such as Claire Denis’ Trouble Every Day and Guillermo del Toro’s more recent dark fantasy Pan’s Labyrinth.
“All the new projects are genre apart from Jean-Luc Godard’s Goodbye to Language 3D,” he continues. “For the first time ever we’re not announcing a French film.”
Switzerland-based Godard’s first foray into 3D, the film explores cinema’s search to reinvent itself with the language of 3D through a couple’s efforts to communicate to save their relationship.
The production featuring Heloise Godet, Zoe Bruneau, Kamel Abdelli, Richard Chevallier and Jessica Erickson in the cast is shooting this summer.
Maraval reveals that Godard has created his own rudimentary 3D camera for the shoot out of two mobile phones fitted with lenses.
“Godard has always been at the forefront of cinema technology,” he comments. “He was one of the first directors to experiment with video.”
On the genre front, Maraval describes de Palma’s Passion, about a deadly power struggle between a sophisticated businesswoman and her innocent protégé, as being in the spirit of his erotic thrillers of the 1980s such as Blow Out and Dressed to Kill and Paul Verhoeven’s Basic Instinct.
Wild Bunch’s first promo reel for the picture, which is five weeks into a ten-week shoot in Germany, already reveals a steamy, on-screen chemistry between the Rachel McAdams and Noomi Rapace.
Maraval and his team are handling the UK, Scandinavia, Eastern Europe, Latin America, and the Middle East. Producer Saïd Ben Saïd’s SBS Production is selling Europe, Australia, South Africa and the U.S. ARP Selection has acquired the title for France where it will be released in February 2013.
Vincenzo Natali’s Haunter features Little Miss Sunshine star Abigail Breslin as the ghost of a teenager, slain with her family in their home in the 1980s, who battles the malevolent spirit of a serial killer to prevent the same fate befalling another teenager living in her house years later.
The picture produced by Copperheart Entertainment – is currently shooting in Canada and will be ready for a Sundance outing next year.
Wild Bunch also will show a promo for Marina de Van’s Dark Touch, revolving around the mystery of a murdered family and an abused girl with destructive telekinetic powers.
Khalfoun’s remake of William Lustig’s 1980 classic Maniac, about a serial killer with a fetish for female scalps, will screen in the market after its Official Midnight Screening premiere.
It is one of a record 16 festival titles represented by Wild Bunch in Cannes this year.
Official selection pictures range from competition titles The Angels’ Share and Beyond the Hills to Lou Ye’s Mystery and Nabil Ayouch’s Horses of God in Un Certain Regard
The company is also representing Directors’ Fortnight selection Granny’s Funeral as well as Rufus Norris’ Critics’ Week opener Broken.
Wild Bunch will also continue sales on Guillaume Canet’s Blood Ties, showing a short film in which the director explains his aims for the picture, as well as the untitled James Gray picture.
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