ComingSoon.net talked to Platinum Dunes producers Brad Fuller and Andrew Form about the company’s upcoming projects. Their latest film, The Hitcher, starring Sean Bean, Sophia Bush, Zachary Knighton and Neal McDonough, opens in theaters on January 19. Platinum Dunes has previously brought to the big screen remakes of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and The Amityville Horror, as well last year’s The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning.
The company is remaking Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds for Universal Pictures. Fuller addressed the rumor about Naomi Watts being up for the lead role. “No actor or actress is going to commit to everything with a script. We’ve sat down with her and conceptually I think we all want to make the same movie, but until we have a script and a director, I think it’s a little premature. But, we’ll all talk and she’s who we’d like to have as the lead.” Fuller added you can expect a new announcement soon. “In the next two weeks, or the next week or so I think they’ll announce it because they’re starting to talk about a new writer to come on and write that. It definitely feels like it’s moving.”
For the Untitled Friday the 13th Origin Film, Form said that they are “working on a script right now. And I think that next year, it’s not in the first two quarters for us, that movie, maybe at the end of the year next year. But right now we are still working on the screenplay.” He said that no director is confirmed yet. “I mean, Jonathan Liebesman is attached to the movie right now, the director of ‘Chainsaw.'” But Fuller said it depends on Liebesman’s schedule. “He’s got a lot of things rolling around right now. So, if he’s available when we have a script, we’d love to work with him again. We had a great experience with him.”
Platinum is also working on an original script for Rogue Pictures called Alone, but the next project is Horsemen. “We start production in a few weeks on a movie called ‘Horsemen.’ It’s a thriller,” said Fuller. Form added that the movie is “in the vein of ‘Se7en’ with Dennis Quaid and Ziyi Zhang.”
Also at Rogue is a new version of Near Dark, the 1987 film about a cowboy wooed into joining a roving band of vampires. Samuel Bayer is attached to direct. “We love the way Eric Red works,” joked Fuller, referring to the original’s screenwriter, who also wrote the original “Hitcher.”
At the same time, “Hitcher” star Sean Bean told us his thoughts about The Hobbit, which may move ahead without “The Lord of the Rings” trilogy director Peter Jackson, and whether he would come back. “It’s very much a creation of Peter Jackson. It’s difficult for me to answer that question because I haven’t heard about it. It depends on the circumstances, the many many circumstances. The director, the writing, the whole idea behind it and what they are trying to achieve.”
