'Luna' director gets 'Sister' gig

Cathy Schulman, Jonathan Krauss producing

By ANNA MARIE DE LA FUENTE

HOLLYWOOD -- Mexican helmer Patricia Riggen, whose feature debut "La ultima luna" (Under the same moon) ignited a bidding war at Sundance, will helm romantic dramedy "Sister in Law" for Mandalay Entertainment.

Cathy Schulman and Jonathan Krauss are producing the $15 million-$20 million budget pic about a widow who falls in love with her dead husband's brother just as she is about to marry someone else.

Riggen is polishing Frank Deford's original screenplay.

Casting begins in a few weeks with plans to start shoot before the year ends.

Riggen is also poised to helm the $20 million English-language adaptation of Isabel Allende's bestseller "Daughter of Fortune" for producer Raffaella de Laurentiis ("The Last Legion").

Di Laurentiis first approached Riggen after seeing "Luna" at the inaugural Cancun Intl. Film Fest in November when she had just secured the rights to the novel. Epic costumer takes place in San Francisco during the gold rush where a young woman dresses as a man to be close to her bandit lover.

"Luna," which cost less than $2 million to make, now ranks as the third top Mexican pic of all time in the U.S., after Alfonso Arau's "Like Water for Chocolate" in 1992 and Alfonso Cuaron's "Y tu mama tambien" in 2001.

Jointly released in the U.S. by The Weinstein Co. and Fox Searchlight, the drama about an immigrant mother and her son's attempts to reunite with her from across the border bowed March 19.

Pic claims the largest all-time opening weekend for a Spanish-language pic. It has since earned $12.3 million in the U.S. where it is still playing. 

In Mexico, where it opened the next day on 350 screens, pic has grossed $9.5 million and is the sixth highest grossing Mexican pic of all time.