'Bunny Lake' remake on fast track

Witherspoon in talks to star in Carnahan-directed film

By MICHAEL FLEMING

Joe Carnahan is in talks to direct a remake of "Bunny Lake is Missing," a thriller that is fast taking shape as the likely next starring vehicle for Reese Witherspoon.

Deals are just getting under way, but Spyglass Entertainment is in talks to finance the picture, with Columbia Pictures to distribute domestically.

Spyglass partners Roger Birnbaum and Gary Barber are producing with Mark Gordon and Type A's Witherspoon and Jennifer Simpson. Those producers joined forces on the project in 2003, when they set up the remake as a potential star vehicle for Witherspoon.

Based on the 1965 Otto Preminger film, pic surrounds the events that occur after a woman reports that her daughter Bunny Lake has gone missing. When police find no evidence that she even existed, they being to question the woman's sanity.

"Quills" scribe Doug Wright -- the Pulitzer Prize playwright of "I Am My Own Wife" -- is working on a rewrite of his own script with Carnahan.

Carnahan, who recently completed the ensemble drama "Smokin' Aces," hopes to helm "Bunny Lake Is Missing" before he directs George Clooney in "White Jazz." Latter pic, which Matthew Michael Carnahan adapted from the James Ellroy novel, is scheduled to begin production in early 2008 for Warner Independent Pictures.

Producer Gordon already has a close relationship with Carnahan through another project they have together, an adaptation of the Mark Bowden non-fiction book "Killing Pablo."

Witherspoon, who produces through her Type A Films banner, is currently starring with Jake Gyllenhaal and Meryl Streep in "Rendition," the Gavin Hood-directed drama for New Line Cinema.

Carnahan and Witherspoon are repped by Endeavor and Management 360.

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