AMBI Pictures will finance and produce a remake of Christopher Nolan’s offbeat thriller “Memento.”
Christopher Nolan directed “Memento” from his own script, adapted from a short story by his brother Jonathan Nolan titled “Memento Mori.” The film, starring Guy Pearce as an amnesiac, was presented in a series of black-and-white scenes shown chronologically, and color sequences shown in reverse order.
“Memento” premiered at the Venice International Film Festival and was a solid box office performer with nearly $40 million. It also received Oscar nominations for best original screenplay and best film editing.
AMBI took ownership of “Memento” remake rights when the company acquired the Exclusive Media Group film library in September.
AMBI announced a new $200 million film fund last week. Monika Bacardi and Andrea Iervolino are anchor investors in the fund along with New York-based private equity firm Raven Capital Management, leading to greenlighting “Memento” as its newest feature production.
“‘Memento’ has been consistently ranked as one of the best films of its decade. People who’ve seen ‘Memento’ 10 times still feel they need to see it one more time,” Iervolino said. “This is a quality that we feel really supports and justifies a remake. The bar is set high thanks to the brilliance or Christopher Nolan, but we wouldn’t want it any other way.”
AMBI’s film slate includes James Franco’s “In Dubious Battle,” starring Nat Wolff, Selena Gomez, Vincent D’Onofrio, Robert Duvall, Ed Harris and Bryan Cranston; the CGI family animated film “Arctic Justice: Thunder Squad,” featuring the voices of Franco, John Cleese, Alec Baldwin, Angelica Huston and Heidi Klum; “Septembers of Shiraz,” with Salma Hayek and Adrien Brody; and the contemporary fairy tale “This Beautiful Fantastic,” toplined by Jessica Brown Findlay and Tom Wilkinson.
It recently completed sales at the American Film Market on Sarah Jessica Parker’s romantic comedy “All Roads Lead to Rome.”
