Gomez sets revenge film 'Vurdalak'

Collet-Serra to direct neo-medieval tale

By JOHN HOPEWELL

SAN SEBASTIAN -- Vet Spanish producer Andres Vicente Gomez ("Belle Epoque," "The Dancer Upstairs") has attached Jaume Collet-Serra ("House of Wax") to direct "Vurdalak," a neo-medieval tale of vengeance between bloodthirsty warlords, which is expected to attract vidgame attention.

"Vurdalak" is set up at Gomez's RadioPlus, a shingle he co-owns with radio journo and TV presenter Concha Garcia-Campoy.

Pic turns on Safet, who survives his family's massacre at the hands of Prince Verjik and, corroded by hate, becomes a living dead "Vurdalak."

Collet-Serra has delivered a first draft of the script, said Gomez, and San Francisco's Massive Black studio has started pre-visualizations and digital design.

The actioner is a longterm project; Gomez said he would like to shoot in 3-D "but 3-D film production is not totally developed as yet."

Though Gomez will have to take the film to the international market to get it financed, the project's obvious vidgame potential is especially attractive in Spain.

Hit by online piracy, Spanish cinema admissions and DVD sales dropped by 5% and 6% last year, but year-on-year vidgame sales increased 18%, way above Western Europe's average 10% growth in 2006.

Gomez has a second movie set up at RadioPlus: Agusti Villaronga's "Contra Gil de Biedma," about Spain's upper-class, gay poet Jaime Gil de Biedma.

He also has a co-producer credit on helmer Jorge Blanco's "Planet One," an alien planet comedy written by Joe Stillman ("Shrek"), produced by Madrid's Ilion Animation Studios and the U.K.'s Handmade Films.