US producers Janet Harrison and Scott Rosenfelt have launched bi-coastal production company PicturePlay Films to make films with budgets ranging from $5m-$20m.

The company’s first project will be City Of Angels, with Barry Levinson attached to direct based on Larry Gelbart’s screenplay adapted from the Broadway musical, for which Gelbart also wrote the book.

The noir story is about a novelist lured to Hollywood in the early 1950s.

Mark Shaiman will base the score on Cy Coleman’s jazz score for the original production; lyricist David Zippel has also signed on for the film.

Pictureplay will produce with Michael Lynne, Bob Shaye and Mark Kaufman of Unique Features.

PicturePlay’s other projects in the works include James Moll’s Tougaloo written by Alfred Uhry (to be produced with Pacific Street Films); Adam Rodgers and Glenn German’s romantic comedy Admissions which Rodgers will direct; LA Banks adaptation Minion about an African American female vampire slayer; CIA expedition story Nanda Devil; Casa Joe written by Dennis Koenig; and David Simpatico’s Mike’s Makeover.

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