Scribes make suicide pact

Gus Van Sant, Bret Easton Ellis team on film

By MICHAEL FLEMING

Gus Van Sant and author Bret Easton Ellis will team to write a feature about the double suicide of artists Theresa Duncan and Jeremy Blake.

PalmStar Entertainment, Celluloid Dreams and K5 Film have acquired screen rights to "The Golden Suicides," a Vanity Fair article written by Nancy Jo Sales.

Van Sant, who helmed "Milk" and is prepping the Columbia Pictures drama "Restless," is involved only as writer at this point.

Ithaka Entertainment's Braxton Pope will produce with PalmStar's Kevin Frakes and Celluloid Dreams' Hengameh Panahi.

Duncan and Blake formed a popular couple on the downtown New York and Venice, Calif., art scenes. She was one of the first videogame designers for girls, and his "digital paintings" -- kaleidoscopic images shown on plasma screens -- established him as a rising star on the circuit.

The couple descended into a paranoid spiral when the artists developed a consuming belief that government and religious organizations were conspiring against them. She killed herself in 2007. Blake found her body on the floor of their bedroom, and walked into the Atlantic Ocean a week later, ending his life.

Patrick Siaretta, Oliver Simon and Daniel Baur will be exec producers, and Courtney Andrialis is co-producer.