Warners into 'Funny' business with helmer

WIP lands rights to Haneke remake

By IAN MOHR

Warner Independent Pictures has inked a multiterritory deal for distrib rights to "Cache" auteur Michael Haneke's English-language debut, a remake of his 1997 pic "Funny Games," toplining Naomi Watts.

Currently lensing at Gotham's Steiner Studios, thriller follows two deeply disturbed young men who take a family hostage in a vacation home invasion.

Tim Roth, Michael Pitt, Brady Corbet and Devon Gearhart also star.

WIP takes rights in the U.S. as well as in France, Spain and Australia.

Distrib -- in current release with the Truman Capote biopic "Infamous," as well as Michel Gondry's "The Science of Sleep" -- is planning a rollout next year.

Halcyon Pictures' Chris Coen and Tartan Films' Hamish McAlpine produce.

Watts is exec producing with Hengameh Panahi of French shingle Celluloid Dreams, which is repping international sales.

Celluloid's Christian Baute, X Filme's Andro Steinborn and Lucky Red's Andrea Occhipinti are co-producing, along with Jonathan Schwartz and the Kinomatagraph label.

Haneke's last effort, thriller "Cache," grossed $3.64 million domestically in a release through Sony Pictures Classics.

Read the full article at:
http://www.variety.com/article/VR1117952048.html

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