WB's fearless factor

Studio buys scribes' Benvenuti, Rudnick comedy pitch

By CLAUDE BRODESSER, CATHY DUNKLEY

In a rare pricey pitch sale, Warner Bros. Pictures has paid high-six against low-seven figures to acquire an untitled pitch from writers Leo Benvenuti and Steve Rudnick.

Comedy's storyline is being kept under wraps but is understood to concern a man who's lost all sense of self-preservation and fear.

Warner Bros. Pictures senior VP production Polly Cohen will oversee development on the untitled pitch.

Scribes are best known for co-writing Disney's "The Santa Clause" and its sequel as well as Warner's "Space Jam."

Former DreamWorks and Artisan production topper Bob Cooper is producing the pic via his Landscape Pictures banner. He most recently produced MGM tweener comedy "Sleepover."

More recently, scribes set up the Universal comedy "Kicking and Screaming," which has Will Ferrell attached to star.

Ferrell is also attached to another Bob Cooper project, "Fly on the Wall," a pitch penned by "Emperor's Club" scribe Neil Tolkin and set up at U.