By MCN Editor editor@moviecitynews.com

Screen Gems Gets Into MORTAL INSTRUMENTS

Posted Monday, October 4th, 2010 - 1 Comment »
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Screen Gems has teamed with Constantin Film and Unique Features to develop the motion picture franchise MORTAL INSTRUMENTS based on The New York Times Bestselling book series The Mortal Instruments by Cassandra Clare. Jessica Postigo penned the script which is based on the first book in the series, City of Bones. Constantin Film’s head of Film & TV Martin Moszkowicz will executive produce and Robert Kulzer will produce the project via the Constantin Film banner along with producing partners Michael Lynne, Robert Shaye, and executive producer Dylan Sellers via their Unique Features banner.

In City of Bones, set in contemporary New York City, a seemingly ordinary teenager Clary Fray, discovers she is the descendent of a line of Shadowhunters, a secret cadre of warriors dedicated to driving demons out of our world. When Clary’s mother disappears, she must join a daring group of young Shadowhunters on an adventure, which leads her through a city filled with mischievous fairies, eccentric warlocks, werewolf gangs and other strange creatures.

The Mortal Instruments is a series of four novels published by Margaret K. McElderry Books, a division of Simon & Schuster, Inc., including City of Bones, City of Ashes, City of Glass, and the upcoming City of Fallen Angels.

Clint Culpepper, Screen Gems’ President, and Eric Paquette, Screen Gems’ SVP of Production, will oversee the project for the studio.

About Cassandra Clare
Cassandra Clare was born to American parents in Teheran, Iran and spent much of her childhood travelling the world with her family, including one trek through the Himalayas as a toddler where she spent a month living in her father’s backpack. She lived in France, England and Switzerland before she was ten years old. Since her family moved around so much she found familiarity in books and went everywhere with a book under her arm. She spent her high school years in Los Angeles where she used to write stories to amuse her classmates, including an epic novel called “The Beautiful Cassandra” based on the eponymous Jane Austen short story (and from which she later took her current pen name).

After college, Clare lived in Los Angeles and New York where she worked at various entertainment magazines and even some rather suspect tabloids. She started working on her YA novel, City of Bones, in 2004, inspired by the urban landscape of Manhattan, her favorite city. She turned to writing fantasy fiction full time in 2006.

About Screen Gems
Screen Gems is the specialty production division at Sony Pictures Entertainment, which was created to finance and produce moderately budgeted films that are marketed to targeted audiences.

About Constantin Film
Constantin Film is synonymous with quality and success for over than 30 years. It has played a crucial role in the development of German film both nationally and internationally. Between 1977, when Bernd Eichinger established the company, and 2009, when it was integrated in the Constantin Medien AG media group, Constantin Film developed into the most successful independent production and distribution company in the German media industry. Constantin Film’s operations include motion picture theatrical l production in German and English language , theatrical distribution, home entertainment distribution, licence trading and television production.

Constantin Film’s diverse slate encompasses comedies (Der bewegte Mann, Werner – Beinhart!, Manitou’s Shoe), family entertainment (Wickie and the Mighty Vikings, Die Wilden Hühner film franchise, The Neverending Story), genre films (Resident Evil film franchise, The Fantastic Four film franchise ), thrillers, dramas, art house films and film adaptations (Nowhere in Africa, Downfall, The Baader Meinhof Complex, Pope Joan, The House of the Spirits). In the last 30 years, six of the top ten German blockbusters were produced by Constantin Film. Since 1988, nearly half of all German language feature films were released through Constantin Film. In the past decade, 14 of Germany’s top 30 theatrical films were distributed by Constantin Film. (Source: Top 50 List since 1988, SPIO statistics)

In the past years, Constantin Film has been the dominant leading independent producer and distributor in the German market. In 2009, Constantin achieved a market share of almost 11 per cent. (Source: SPIO statistics)

About Unique Features
Unique Features, a new independent company that aims to produce three to four movies a year, was launched in 2008 by Bob Shaye and Michael Lynne, who together built New Line Cinema into an industry powerhouse. The company is currently developing and producing several projects through Warner Bros., Screen Gems and Constantin Films.

About Sony Pictures Entertainment
Sony Pictures Entertainment (SPE) is a subsidiary of Sony Corporation of America, a subsidiary of Tokyo-based Sony Corporation. SPE’s global operations encompass motion picture production and distribution; television production and distribution; home entertainment acquisition and distribution; a global channel network; digital content creation and distribution; operation of studio facilities; development of new entertainment products, services and technologies; and distribution of entertainment in more than 140 countries. Sony Pictures Entertainment can be found on the World Wide Web at http://www.sonypictures.com.

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Posted in Movie City News, Press Releases | 1 Comment »

One Response to “Screen Gems Gets Into MORTAL INSTRUMENTS”

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    November 5, 2010 at 7:38 am

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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