Participant Media has joined Steven Spielberg’s Untitled Cold War Spy Thriller and period drama The Light Between Oceans.

Untitled Cold War Spy Thriller will star Tom Hanks, Mark Rylance and Amy Ryan and is based on a screenplay by Joel and Ethan Coen from an original script by Matt Charman.

Twentieth Century Fox is co-financing and will handle international distribution on the film, based on the story of an attorney sent by the CIA to negotiate the release of a captured American U-2 pilot during the Cold War.

Filming is set to commence next month in New York and Berlin. Spielberg will direct and is producing with Marc Platt and Kristie Macosko Krieger. Adam Somner and Daniel Lupi are the executive producers.

Buena Vista will distribute in the US on October 16, 2015.

Derek Cianfrance is adapting and will direct ML Stedman’s novel The Light Between The Oceans, which wil star Michael Fassbender, Alicia Vikander and Rachel Weisz. 

Production is scheduled to begin next month in New Zealand and Australia on the story of a lighthouse keeper and his wife in the years following WWI who take the fateful decision to adopt an infant who washes ashore with a dead man.

Heyday Films’ David Heyman and Jeffrey Clifford are producing. Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures International will release in select territories and Mister Smith licensees will distribute in Europe, Africa and the Middle East.

Participant Media and DreamWorks have collaborated on current release The Hundred-Foot Journey, Lincoln, The Help, The Fifth Estate, The Kite Runner and The Soloist.

“We have had a successful and rewarding partnership with Participant on six total films over the past years,” said DreamWorks Studios president and COO Jeff Small. “We look forward to continuing this productive relationship which allows us to bring exciting and quality films to audiences around the world.”

Participant Media CEO Jim Berk (pictured at left with Spielberg and Participant Media founder Jeff Skoll) added: “Participant and DreamWorks collaborate so well because both our companies exist to bring entertaining and thought-provoking films to life.  

“These next two films, which will be our seventh and eighth collaboration, each represents a unique and extraordinary opportunity to work with brilliant storytellers.”

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