Peter Weir is attached to direct contemporary gothic thriller “The Keep,” adapting Jennifer Egan’s 2006 bestseller in a film set in a mysterious medieval castle somewhere in Central Europe.
Shooting next spring, “The Keep” is set up at Said Ben Said’s Paris-based production-sales outfit SBS Productions, which is also producer of Brian de Palma’s “Passion.” That pic, starring Rachel McAdams and Noomi Rapace, is one of the highest-profile titles at this year’s Cannes market.
SBS will in principle handle foreign sales, per Ben Said.
“The Keep” turns on two estranged American cousins who reunite to set up an alternative resort, stirring childhood traumas and phobias in a haunted castle.
It will be the next film after “The Way Back” for Weir, Ben Said said.
Weir is writing the screenplay. Budget is around $30 million, Ben Said said.
“Basically, ‘The Keep’ is a studio-shoot movie,” he said. He told Variety it will be structured as a France-Australia — or possibly France-Germany-Australia — co-production, using French and Australian crew.
“The Keep” will shoot in Europe and post in Australia, or vice versa. Ben Said aims to draw down around 40%-50% of financing via subsidy and tax credits and the remainder out from pre-sales and co-production.
Egan won the Pulitzer prize with 2011’s “A Visit From the Goon Squad.”
SBS produced Roman Polanski’s “Carnage,” with Jodie Foster, Kate Winslet, Christoph Waltz and John C. Reilly.
Weir’s credits include “Master and Commander: the Far Side of the World” and “The Truman Show.”
He is represented by ICM’s John Burnham; his attorney is Nigel Pearson at Loeb & Loeb. Ben Said is repped by Joel Behr at Behr and Abramson.
