The Hollywood Reporter says Marco Garibaldi is getting back in the entertainment game after a decade-long absence, forming a new production company that will produce a remake of the Peter Sellers cult hit The Party.
His new banner, Godfather Entertainment, will aim to make movies in the $20 million range in a manner he says will be more efficient than the one practiced by the studios, and will attract talent by coming up with creative back-end deals.
Among its projects, Godfather will team with Avi Lerner’s Nu Image Films for Last Chance Motel, a psychological thriller that Garibaldi will write and direct with shooting planned for 2009. Godfather also is developing a mob movie titled The Vault, written by Alex Merkin and Jesse Mittelstadt.
But Garibaldi’s flagship project will be a remake of “Party,” the Blake Edwards-directed film that has had a devoted following since its 1968 release by United Artists.
The original film centered on Sellers’ Hrundi V. Bakshi, a bumbling Indian extra accidentally invited to a glamorous Hollywood party, with Sellers hamming it up in a series of loosely connected vignettes.
In the new version, only part of the conceit is the same: a hapless blond Midwesterner will have his appearance changed to resemble an Indian by a zealous studio eager he fit a part.
Godfather also is the production company behind Across the Hall, the Brittany Murphy romantic thriller directed by Merkin from a script he wrote with Mittelstadt and produced with NBA star Elton Brand’s production banner. The film is close to finding domestic distribution and is likely to be released in 2009.
