According to this tracking board, Mary is the hottest horror script in town.
Mary hit the market this week and is from The Shallows screenwriter Anthony Jaswinski. Story details are being kept under wraps, but the site is hearing that it’s being pitched as The Shining meets The Conjuring on a boat.
Here’s who is in play, with news of an acquisition imminent:
Scott Stuber’s Bluegrass Films has teamed with Jason Blum’s Blumhouse to take this for Universal. Lorenzo Di Bonaventura is taking this into Paramount and Netflix, while John Davis and his Davis Entertainment is taking this for 20th Century Fox and Sony. Michael De Luca is in on this in a big way, taking both Studio 8 and Lionsgate, but also teaming with Brett Ratner’s RatPac for New Line. Matt Tolmach has TriStar squared away, while Neal Moritz and his Original Films have taken EuropaCorp and Studio Canal.
Add the site: The Shallows, formerly known as In the Deep, landed on the 2014 Hit List and Black List and sparked a bidding war that was ultimately won by Sony. Jaswinski, whose buzzy Blake Lively-starring shark thriller hits theaters on June 29th, will also see the horror film he scripted, Satanic, hit theaters later that same week. Given the heat that’s already building around Mary, June could prove to be a banner month for the screenwriter who won the Nicholl Fellowship back in 1997.
Jaswinski has had a busy career in the years since, maintaining an impressive track record with his specs. His supernatural thriller The Visitation landed on the 2010 Hit List, May You Live In Interesting Times – his second spec to land on the 2014 Hit List – is currently set up at Voltage, and his New Orleans-set vampire thriller Garden District is in the works at Dimension.
Jaswinski’s previously produced films include include Killing Time, Vanishing on 7th Street, and 2014’s Kristy, the latter from his 2009 Blood List script. Last year, Jaswinski’s pitch Variant, a female-driven sci-fi actioneer, sold to Warner Bros. for a low six-figures.