Latest in The Picture Company

SUNDAY AM w/chart: Focus Features/Amblin’s PG-13 horror movie Come Play came in better than expected, seeing a boost on Halloween night (as opposed to an expected -5% drop) with $1.3M, +18% over Friday + preview’s $1.1M. This puts the pic’s opening weekend at $3.15M in the No. 1 spot. One industry insider tells me…

EXCLUSIVE: In a competitive situation, Paramount has snapped up the rights to Meet Jimmy, a short horror film that its Dutch filmmakers David-Jan Bronsgeest and Tim Koomen will turn into a horror film. There was intense interest in the short. Paramount had an inside track given that Platinum Dunes has its deal there…

EXCLUSIVE: Legendary Entertainment and The Picture Company have secured the rights to first time filmmaker Julian Terry's horror short They Hear It. Created by Terry as a proof of concept short, the film will be turned into a feature by Legendary and The Picture Company on which Terry will make his directing debut…

EXCLUSIVE: Studiocanal and The Picture Company came out on the winning end of an auction for Gunpowder Milkshake, an action film that will be the next directorial outing for Big Bad Wolves directors Aharon Keshales and Navot Papushado. The duo wrote the script with Ehud Lavski. Andrew Rona and Alex Heineman will…

EXCLUSIVE: Liam Neeson will next star in Retribution, a remake of the Spanish thriller El Desconocido. Studiocanal is backing the film for a fall shoot in a co-production with The Picture Company and Ombra Films. Andrew Rona and Alex Heineman will produce under The Picture Company’s overall StudioCanal deal, with…

EXCLUSIVE: Peter Landesman has been set to direct The Last Battle for Studiocanal and The Picture Company. Landesman, the writer-director of Concussion, has wrapped Felt, the drama that has Liam Neeson playing Hoover’s #2 FBI man Mark Felt, whose “Deep Throat” intel toppled the Nixon Administration over Watergate…

EXCLUSIVE: StudioCanal and The Picture Company have set director Drake Doremus for The Tracking Of A Russian Spy, the fact-based thriller based on the novella by Mitch Swenson. The Picture Company’s Andrew Rona and Alex Heineman are producing. The script is written by Charles Cumming, and production is eyed for the…

EXCLUSIVE: DreamWorks has hired Oscar nominee Jonathan Herman to adapt The Travelers, the thriller novel by bestselling author Chris Pavone. Herman was Oscar nominated with Andrea Berloff for Best Original Screenplay for Straight Outta Compton, the N.W.A biopic that grossed north of $200 million worldwide. The book is…

EXCLUSIVE: Jaume Collet-Serra has boarded The Commuter, committing to make the thriller his next directorial outing, with production to start this summer. He reunites with Liam Neeson, with whom he teamed on the global hits Non-Stop and Unknown. The film also brings Serra back with Studiocanal and The Picture…

EXCLUSIVE: StudioCanal has acquired the Stephen Harding World War II nonfiction book The Last Battle: When U.S. And German Soldiers Joined Forces In The Waning Hours Of World War II In Europe. The Picture Company’s Andrew Rona and Alex Heineman will produce the feature thriller about a daring attempt by a small band…

EXCLUSIVE: DreamWorks has acquired The Travelers, the latest thriller by New York Times best-selling author Chris Pavone. Picture Company partners Andrew Rona and Alex Heineman will produce. To be published in March, the book is a Hitchcockian thriller with shades of Mr. And Mrs. Smith and North By Northwest. Will…

EXCLUSIVE: Liam Neeson has scheduled his next vehicle. He’ll star in The Commuter, a suspense-thriller written by Byron Willinger and Phil de Blasi. Studiocanal is financing, and The Picture Company’s Andrew Rona and Alex Heineman will produce with StudioCanal. They all worked with Neeson on the thrillers Non-Stop and…