EXCLUSIVE: TriStar Pictures has picked up Daniel Kunka’s pitch about a female-driven sci-fi thriller, based on the CAGN short story by Christian Cantrell. Originally self-published under the title Anansi Island, the “Michael Crichton-esque” story centers on a mysterious island where a secret government project has…

Josh Stamberg (The Affair, Parenthood) will take on the role of playwright Arthur Miller in Fall, a new play written by Bernard Weinraub, the former film reporter for The New York Times, and produced by Todd Black and Steve Tisch of Escape Artists, the film production company behind such movies as Southpaw and The Purs…

EXCLUSIVE: Sony-based Escape Artists has hired Becky Sanderman as veep of Production, a role in which she will oversee development of feature film and TV projects at the company. Sanderman will work alongside production VP Tony Shaw. Sanderman had been director of development at Dimension Films since May 2016, having…

EXCLUSIVE: Sony is fast tracking a remake of the 2015 French film Disorder, with Logan helmer James Mangold now attached as director after reading the script by Taylor Sheridan. Escape Artists partners Todd Black, Jason Blumenthal and Steve Tisch are producing with Tony Shaw, and David Beaubaire is overseeing it for…

EXCLUSIVE: Amazon Studios has acquired Linda And Monica, the Black List script by Flint Wainess that details the budding friendship between D.C. pals Linda Tripp and Monica Lewinsky that imploded when it led to the revelation of the scandalous relationship between the White House intern and President Bill Clinton. The…

EXCLUSIVE: Taylor Sheridan, the writer who followed Sicario with Hell Or High Water, has just been set by Sony Pictures and Escape Artists to script Disorder. Pic is a remake of the 2015 French film, which starred Matthias Schoenaerts as an ex-soldier with PTSD hired to protect the wife and child of a wealthy Lebanese…

EXCLUSIVE: Escape Artists is adding another executive to its roster. Tony Shaw, who had been director of development at Captivate Entertainment for the past seven years, has left to join the production company behind such films as Southpaw, The Equalizer and The Magnificent Seven, which will be released in September…

EXCLUSIVE: Escape Artists just optioned Wallace Stegner’s critically acclaimed novel Crossing To Safety, a semi-autobiographical tome about two academic couples who meet in Madison, WI and follows their marriages and friendship over the course of several decades. The book itself, published in 1987 by Random House…

FX Productions has closed a two-year first-look production deal with Escape Artists, the independent production company of Todd Black, Jason Blumenthal and Steve Tisch. This marks the first TV deal for Escape Artists, founded in 2001 by Black, Blumenthal and Tisch, whose feature credits include The Weather Man, The Pur…

EXCLUSIVE: As The New Republic turns 100 years old, Sony Pictures and Escape Artists have made a pre-emptive acquisition of “The Year Of The Pigskin,” a just-published feature by Christopher Beam about the unlikely success of the Chongqing Dockers, one of the first teams in the very first American football league to…

EXCLUSIVE: Sony Pictures has acquired an untitled pitch from Kate Angelo. Escape Artists‘ Steve Tisch, Todd Black and Jason Blumenthal will produce, with Hannah Minghella overseeing for the studio. Both Sony and Escape Artists completed the Angelo-scripted Sex Tape with Jason Segel and Cameron Diaz, which Sony…

EXCLUSIVE: Jon M. Chu is in talks to helm Masters Of The Universe, a live-action film based on the signature Mattel toy line that is in high gear at Sony Pictures and Escape Artists. Talks are just getting underway with Chu, who is in the middle of a 3D conversion on G.I. Joe: Retaliation, and is preparing to shoot a…