Meirelles sees next pic
Helmer eyes 'Blindness'
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Book is a philosophical thriller about an epidemic of blindness that sweeps through an unnamed contemporary city and pushes society to the brink of breakdown.
The $25 million project is being set up as a Brazilian/Canadian co-production. It will shoot next summer in Sao Paolo, Meirelles' hometown, and Toronto.
The script is by Don McKellar, the Canadian writer-director-actor, who optioned the book with his producing partner, Niv Fichman of Rhombus Media.
McKellar also will play a supporting role in the movie. The other parts have yet to be cast.
Fichman will produce with Simon Channing-Williams and Gail Egan of London-based Pot Boiler Films, who produced Meirelles' last movie, "The Constant Gardener."
The other co-producers are Sonoko Sakai of Japan's Bee Vine Pictures and Andrea Barata Ribeiro of O2 Filmes in Brazil.
It was only after they offered the project to Meirelles that they discovered he had previously tried to option "Blindness" back in 1998, but had been rebuffed by Saramago.
Meirelles went on instead to make "City of God," the movie that first brought him international acclaim.
Like Meirelles before them, McKellar and Fichman were initially rebuffed by Saramago, who had never previously sold film rights to any of his books. "He told us that cinema destroys the imagination," Fichman recalls.
But the 83-year-old Nobel laureate relented after they flew halfway around the world to persuade him. Saramago also approved their plan to set the movie up as an international co-production, rather than seeking financing from a single U.S. studio.
