Sunset Pictures in shape

'Cattle' first up on company's film slate

By PAMELA MCCLINTOCK

Writer-director Martin Guigui and producer-actress Dahlia Waingort have teamed up with Peter Wooster and Thomas Baraka DiCandia to launch Sunset Pictures, with an eye to financing and producing three films a year in the $3 million-$9 million range.

Backed by private equity, Sunset also will produce television and music, as well as operate a post-production facility and recording studio.

First up on the company's film slate is the already wrapped comedy "Cattle Call," a co-production with National Lampoon. Guigui, who is married to Waingort, wrote and directed the pic, which is being shopped to distribs.

Currently in production at Sunset is "Benny Bliss and the Disciples of Greatness," starring Courtney Gains ("Sweet Home Alabama").

Sunset also has pacted to co-finance "Sweetwater," a biopic about Sweetwater Clifton, the first black player signed by the NBA. Guigui has been working on the project for nearly a decade, and will write and direct. Biopic is being produced by Michel Shane and Anthony Romano, who teamed on "I, Robot."

In development at Sunset is a bigscreen adaptation of Chris Anderson's tome "Raging Bull II: Continuing the Story of Jake LaMotta."

Guigui said the project will focus on the early years of boxer LaMotta, the subject of Martin Scorsese's classic "Raging Bull."

Wooster, of No Big Deal Prods., and DiCandia, of TGV Studios, will head Sunset's post-production facility and recording studio.