Marc Butan’s MadRiver buys high-concept pitch with Riverstone Pictures on board to executive produce.

MadRiver Pictures have acquired the rights to Charles Cumming’s novel The Plane, a high concept action-thriller about a commuter jet that crashes in the Middle East in hostile territory. 

The buzzed-about pitch, described as “Captain Phillips meets Flight Plan”, follows the different passengers aboard the flight, some of whom pull in different directions, as well as the coalition of countries tasked with saving the passengers.

MadRiver Pictures’ Marc Butan will produce alongside Di Bonaventura Pictures’ Lorenzo di Bonaventura and Mark Vahradian, with Alexandra Loewy overseeing for the company.

Edward Fee and Riverstone Pictures’ Deepak Nayar and Nik Bower are executive producing.

Charles Cumming is the author of eight spy novels whose first novel in his Thomas Kell trilogy, A Foreign Country, was acquired by Colin Firth’s Raindog Films.

He is currently adapting the novel for television. Cumming’s work includes a screenplay called How to Catch A Russian Spy for Studiocanal, which Drake Doremus will direct Cumming’s most recent novel, A Divided Spy, will be published in the US in February.

Cumming is represented by CAA, Grandview, and Janklow/Nesbitt.

In Cannes, MadRiver and Wild Bunch’s Insiders consolidated their foreign sales operations to form IMR International, a Los Angeles-based joint venture whose operations will be run by MadRiver’s Kim Fox. 

The company recently announced James Gray’s Ad Astra and it is in post-production on Peter Landesman’s Felt starring Liam Neeson and Diane Lane and James Gray’s The Lost City of Z, starring Charlie Hunnam and Sienna Miller.

Di Bonaventura Pictures is best known for producing the Transformers, G.I. Joe and Red franchises, along with Salt, Side Effects, Shooter and Jack Ryan.

They are currently in production on Transformers 5 and Granite Mountain. The company’s latest film, Deepwater Horizon, will be released September 30th by Lionsgate.

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