Paramount Pictures has snapped up the rights to Meet Jimmy, a short horror film that its Dutch filmmakers David-Jan Bronsgeest and Tim Koomen will turn into a horror film with Platinum Dunes, Deadline reports.
Full details are being kept quiet, but the short revolves around a mysterious podcast that once listened to, has horrific consequences.
Sources compared Meet Jimmy to The Ring and A Nightmare On Elm Street, with a zeitgeist hook.
Bloody Disgusting did some digging and learned that the protagonist is actually listening to a podcast about a notorious serial killer named Jimmy TwoFingers, who kills his victims by putting their fingers in their throats and letting them gag … until they suffocate. Somehow, Jimmy knows that she is listening to the podcast and begins to stalk her.
Jimmy starts talking to her and warns her: if she stops listening, she’ll meet him in person.
The site adds that Paramount sees this as a potential franchise.
Bronsgeest will direct and Shawn and Michael Rasmussen will write the script along with the short’s original writer, Koomen. The Rasmussens scripted Crawl, another high concept genre film for Paramount, which is now in production.
Platinum Dunes’ Michael Bay, Andrew Form and Brad Fuller will produce along with The Picture Company’s Andrew Rona and Alex Heineman. Good Fear’s Jake Wagner and Scott Stoops rep the filmmakers and writers, and will be exec producers. Koomen will be co-producer.
The short premiered at the Fantasia Film Festival.
