By MCN Editor editor@moviecitynews.com

PRODUCER BRAD FISCHER OPTIONS “THE BRIGANDS OF RATTLEBORGE” WRITTEN BY S. CRAIG ZAHLER

42west logo.png Los Angeles (June 16, 2010) – Producer Brad Fischer just acquired rights to the highly sought after screenplay, THE BRIGANDS OF RATTLEBORGE, written by S. Craig Zahler. The script, originally optioned by Warner Bros., was at the top of the 2006 Black List, the industry’s list of the best unproduced screenplays. Within days of the WB option running out, Fischer was able to acquire it amidst multiple bidders. The deal was brokered by Dallas Sonnier at Caliber Media Company and United Talent Agency.
The story is about a group of ruthless thieves who use the cover of a torrential rainstorm to plunder a frontier town named Rattleborge. During the chaotic aftermath, the bereaved sheriff must team up with a vengeful doctor to seek retribution. Fischer will produce. Executive producers are Phoenix Pictures’ topper Mike Medavoy and Arnold W. Messer. Vertigo Entertainment is expected to remain involved in some producing capacity.


“BRIGANDS is a riveting, emotionally-charged story of vengeance and retribution, and there’s simply nothing like it out there,” said Fischer. “Craig’s script has already garnered a great deal of attention from A-list filmmakers and actors and I’m looking forward to helping bring it to the screen along with my partners at Phoenix Pictures.”
Brad Fischer recently produced “Shutter Island” which has grossed $297 million world-wide to-date, making it the top box office film of director Martin Scorsese’s career. He started at Phoenix Pictures in 1998 where he has held multiple positions and was named co-president of production in January 2007. During his tenure at Phoenix Pictures, he has been instrumental in discovering, developing and producing many high-profile projects for the company, including David Fincher’s critically acclaimed commercial hit film “Zodiac,” which Fischer produced.
Currently, Fischer is executive producing “Black Swan,” directed by Darren Aronofsky and starring Natalie Portman and Mila Kunis. Among the upcoming projects he is attached to produce at Phoenix Pictures are a reboot of “Robocop”, Koko” by Peter Straub, which Ken Nolan (“Black Hawk Down”) will adapt, and an upcoming slate which includes projects with Alex Proyas and Frank Darabont.
S. Craig Zahler recently sold a TV pilot pitch entitled “Men Of The Dusk” for the Starz network. His first novel, A Congregation Of Jackals, hits bookstores on September 1st, courtesy of Dorchester Publishing. In 2006, he was named one of Variety’s “10 Screenwriters To Watch.” Zahler is represented by Dallas Sonnier at Caliber Media Company and United Talent Agency.

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It shows how out of it I was in trying to be in it, acknowledging that I was out of it to myself, and then thinking, “Okay, how do I stop being out of it? Well, I get some legitimate illogical narrative ideas” — some novel, you know?

So I decided on three writers that I might be able to option their material and get some producer, or myself as producer, and then get some writer to do a screenplay on it, and maybe make a movie.

And so the three projects were “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep,” “Naked Lunch” and a collection of Bukowski. Which, in 1975, forget it — I mean, that was nuts. Hollywood would not touch any of that, but I was looking for something commercial, and I thought that all of these things were coming.

There would be no Blade Runner if there was no Ray Bradbury. I couldn’t find Philip K. Dick. His agent didn’t even know where he was. And so I gave up.

I was walking down the street and I ran into Bradbury — he directed a play that I was going to do as an actor, so we know each other, but he yelled “hi” — and I’d forgot who he was.

So at my girlfriend Barbara Hershey’s urging — I was with her at that moment — she said, “Talk to him! That guy really wants to talk to you,” and I said “No, fuck him,” and keep walking.

But then I did, and then I realized who it was, and I thought, “Wait, he’s in that realm, maybe he knows Philip K. Dick.” I said, “You know a guy named—” “Yeah, sure — you want his phone number?”

My friend paid my rent for a year while I wrote, because it turned out we couldn’t get a writer. My friends kept on me about, well, if you can’t get a writer, then you write.”
~ Hampton Fancher

“That was the most disappointing thing to me in how this thing was played. Is that I’m on the phone with you now, after all that’s been said, and the fundamental distinction between what James is dealing with in these other cases is not actually brought to the fore. The fundamental difference is that James Franco didn’t seek to use his position to have sex with anyone. There’s not a case of that. He wasn’t using his position or status to try to solicit a sexual favor from anyone. If he had — if that were what the accusation involved — the show would not have gone on. We would have folded up shop and we would have not completed the show. Because then it would have been the same as Harvey Weinstein, or Les Moonves, or any of these cases that are fundamental to this new paradigm. Did you not notice that? Why did you not notice that? Is that not something notable to say, journalistically? Because nobody could find the voice to say it. I’m not just being rhetorical. Why is it that you and the other critics, none of you could find the voice to say, “You know, it’s not this, it’s that”? Because — let me go on and speak further to this. If you go back to the L.A. Times piece, that’s what it lacked. That’s what they were not able to deliver. The one example in the five that involved an issue of a sexual act was between James and a woman he was dating, who he was not working with. There was no professional dynamic in any capacity.

~ David Simon