Producer-director Leslie Greif's the Greif Co. has paid low-six against mid-six figures for the feature rights to the hit British play "Funny Money."
"Money," which ran for two years in London's West End and which is now playing in Paris as the first leg of an intended European expansion, is the latest farce from the pen of Ray Cooney ("Run for Your Wife," "Out of Order").
"Money" is the story of a man who picks up somebody else's briefcase by mistake -- and finds that it contains $5 million in cash. He and his wife, who lead a routine, humdrum existence, decide to abscond with the stash to Barcelona, with the mob hard on their heels.
Pic -- which Greif said he planned to transplant to New York -- will be written and produced by Greif and Harry Basil, with Cooney executive producing. Greif will direct.
Casting is under way on the $10 million pic, which Greif said could be in production by late fall.
Greif produced last year's Rodney Dangerfield comedy "Meet Wally Sparks," which he financed purely from private investors. The completed pic was then sold to Trimark Pictures for domestic and Largo Entertainment for foreign.
Although no decisions have been made, Greif indicated that he was prepared to finance "Money" in the same way.
Greif previously produced the Alec Baldwin starrer "Heaven's Prisoners." He also directed last year's Gramercy thriller "Keys to Tulsa," starring Eric Stoltz and Cameron Diaz.
Hollywood currently has the Cooney bug. In February, the scribe struck a deal with Fox 2000 for an adaptation of "Wife," which he will write for Harold Ramis and Trevor Albert's Ocean Pictures.
A feature version of "Out of Order," meanwhile, is set up with producers Andy Vajna and Mario Kassar, with Cooney again scripting. Vajna has already made a Hungarian-language movie based on the play, entitled "The Minister Misbehaves," which has become one of the most successful Hungarian releases ever.
Cooney was repped by ICM's Leora Bloch and Nick Reed. Larry Becsey of Becsey, Wisdom, Kalajian negotiated for the Greif Co.
Contact the Variety newsroom at
news@variety.com