Another major project has dropped into the EFM as Sierra/Affinity consummates its lengthy courtship with the Black Bear Pictures adventure to star Matthew McConaughey and prepares to kick off international sales in Berlin next week.

Stephen Gaghan will direct Gold from a screenplay by Patrick Massett and John Zinman about a modern-day prospector who teams up with a geologist on a globetrotting quest for gold that involves fraud and scandal.

Producers Teddy Schwarzman of Black Bear, Michael Nozik of Hwy61, Massett, Zinman and McConaughey have earmarked a summer start in Thailand, New York and New Mexico, among other locations.

Black Bear will fully finance the project.

Nozik’s Hwy61 partner Paul Haggis, one of the subjects of Alex Gibney’s incendiary Sundance documentary Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief that has sparked controversy in Park City, will serve as executive producer with Richard Middleton.

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