EXCLUSIVE: Bedlam Productions has snapped up the English-language remake rights to Czech comedy Women In Temptation, which beat Avatar on its release in 2010.
The film, which follows the romantic adventures of three generations of women from the same family, was introduced to Bedlam producer Gareth Ellis-Unwin by Pari-Passu Films and Jerome Rougiers and Guy Boutros’ Once Upon a Time.
Ellis-Unwin told Screen: “I was blown away by how the film was laugh-out-loud funny, sensitive and touching. It has a very sophisticated tone and had me in stitches until the end of the second act, when the story takes a more dramatic turn.”
He added that it should attract a “best of British” cast.
The film centres on a marriage guidance counsellor who’s own relationship is on the rocks, her free-spirited daughter who has questionable morals and questionable boyfriend, and her mother – a glamorous ex-starlet who chases younger men.
Bedlam, one of the UK production company’s behind Oscar-winner The King’s Speech, will co-produce with Pari-Passu and is set to go into production in early 2014.
It will be set in the UK, in both city and rural locations.
Asked if any major changes would be made to the story, Ellis-Unwin added: “We want to be sensitive to the original. But the UK is an interesting country in terms of our manners, foibles and eccentricities so it will afford the writer room to bring some of that in.”
Women In Temptation, originally titled Zeny v pokuseni and produced by Tomas Hoffman’s Infinity Prague, topped the Czech box office in 2010, recording more admissions than Avatar, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1 and Inception.
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