Village Roadshow Pictures Teams With ‘Pirates Of The Caribbean’ Director & ‘Buried’ Scribe For Conspiracy Thriller ‘The Prize’
EXCLUSIVE: Joker and The Matrix co-producer Village Roadshow Pictures has optioned and is looking to fast-track The Prize, a spec feature written by Buried and Greenland scribe Chris Sparling with Pirates Of The Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales co-helmer Espen Sandberg aboard to direct.
The conspiracy thriller follows an American private investigator who travels to Stockholm after the suspicious death of an old friend, a ranking member of the Nobel Prize selection committee, only to become entangled in a dangerous web of corruption and crime that exists beneath the surface of the powerful and rarefied circle.
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Sparling and Zach Studin (McCarthy) will produce. Jillian Apfelbaum will oversee for Village Roadshow. UTA Independent Film Group will handle U.S. sales.
Sparling script Greenland, the action-thriller starring Gerard Butler, is currently on release. Contained thriller Buried with Ryan Reynolds was a breakout hit in 2010. Sandberg is well known for projects including Max Manus, Kon-Tiki and TV series Marco Polo.
Village Roadshow co-pro The Matrix 4 re-started production this week in Berlin following the pandemic hiatus. Also upcoming with Warner Bros. is Sherlock Holmes 3 with director Dexter Fletcher.
Sparling is repped by UTA, Kaplan/Perrone Entertainment and Lichter, Grossman, Nichols, Adler, Feldman & Clark. Sandberg is represented by UTA, Brillstein Entertainment Partners, and attorney Warren Dern with Sloane, Offer, Weber, and Dern, LLP.
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