Becker Entertainment has acquired Australasian rights to local writer/director Bill Bennett's US film Tempted from TF1 and will release it early next year.

The sexual thriller about betrayal, passion and deceit was shot entirely on location in the stately homes and surrounding swamps of New Orleans. Peter Facinelli plays a young law student who is delivered a tempting proposition by Burt Reynolds' wealthy character, the much older husband of Saffron Burrows' Lily.

Becker's head of distribution Richard Sheffield, is executive producer on Bennett's next film The Nugget, which goes into production this month with Eric Bana of Chopper fame in the lead role.

Local rights are held by Roadshow, however, because the deal pre-dated Sheffield's return to Becker in March. Sheffield handled Bennett's 1999 film In A Savage Land when he headed Polygram's Australian office. Bennett's Kiss Or Kill was honoured with the country's best film award in 1997.