Prisoners Gains a Producer but Loses its Stars
Debi Moore
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In an interesting twist of fate, Aaron Guzikowski’s hot spec script Prisoners has been acquired by Alcon Entertainment, but in the process its previously attached stars Mark Wahlberg and Christian Bale have dropped off the project along with rumored director Bryan Singer.
According to THR, Alcon plans to fast-track Prisoners for a proposed October, 2010 release date with a new cast and crew being brought on board by this fall. The plot goes something like this: After his 6-year-old daughter and her friend are kidnapped, a small-town carpenter butts heads with a young, brash detective in charge of the investigation. The father is a Bible-reading, deer-hunting survivalist. The cop, meanwhile, can’t wait to get to the city. Feeling failed by the law, the father captures the man he believes responsible and begins to torture him in a desperate attempt to find out what he did with the girls, whom he’s convinced are still alive.
The New York-based Guzikowsi is a previous unknown who until the sale last week was working as an assistant at an advertising firm. At a time when studios are delaying projects or not buying them at all, the sale — which will see a project go from the peddling of a spec to a finished film on the screen in fewer than 18 months — is highly anomalous. Alcon is the producer behind Christopher Nolan’s Insomnia and upcoming Denzel Washington thriller The Book of Eli. The company has a put deal with Warners which allows the banner to release a minimum number of movies via Warners every year.
Keep it here for updates on Prisoners as they come in.
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