Scott Steindorff's Stone Village has acquired "Lobo," a spec script for an action thriller by Dikran Ornekian and Ryan Colluci about a colony of werewolves in Brazil. Ezna Sands has been set to direct.

The film has been fast-tracked for an Oct. 15 production start and will shoot outside Rio de Janeiro. Pic's under-$15 million budget will be financed independently.

Essential Entertainment has been retained to sell international territories.

In the film, a man receives a photo and letters from his mother's will, then heads to an isolated town in the Amazon to discover his roots. There, he discovers a near-extinct species of werewolves and his true identity, and he helps the werewolves wage a battle for survival.

"The stylized nature of the film is what drew me, because it's far less a monster movie than a Western in the mold of Sergio Leone's 'Once Upon a Time in America,'�" Sands said. "I have the opportunity to bring back to audience the kind of hero they had in the '70s, someone as dark and conflicted as the new James Bond or the Dark Knight. Our intention is to tell a single story over three films, and this first chapter is a guy who makes a massive revelation."

Steindorff will produce and Dylan Russell and Scott LaStaiti are executive producers.

The film has begun casting, and IPG is packaging a companion graphic novel that will be written by the scribes.

Sands just completed his feature directing debut, an untitled thriller that mixes elements of fiction and reality.

Stone Village is shooting "Stan Helsing" and recently produced and financed "Love in the Time of Cholera."