HanWay picks up Daniel Stamm thriller The Darkness

HanWay has picked up international rights to Daniel Stamm’s (The Last Exorcism) new thriller The Darkness starring Mary Elizabeth Winstead (Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, The Thing). HanWay will also co-handle US rights with CAA, who rep Stamm and Winstead.

Megan Holley (Sunshine Cleaning) has scripted and producers are Joe Neurater of Occupant Entertainment and Felipe Marino and Ben Forkner of Management 360.

XYZ Films (The Raid) will be executive producing on the thriller which is set to shoot this summer in Europe.

The Darkness, loosely based on Henry James’ classic novel Turn of the Screw, follows a young American student working for a charismatic tutor in an English manor house who becomes convinced that she and the children she is warding are being haunted.

Winstead most recently appeared in Sundance hit Smashed and recently finished shoot on in Timur Bekmambetov’s Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter opposite Dominic Cooper. Stamm’s 2010 thriller The Last Exorcism grossed $71m at the box office.

HanWay managing director Thorsten Schumacher said: “We were blown away by The Last Exorcism. Given the recent box office success of the ghost movie genre in attracting the sought after younger audience, the timing is perfect to bring this haunting thriller to the marketplace”.