Before The Fall director Gutierrez to make two US projects

Rising Spanish director Francisco Javier Gutierrez is due to work in the US on a remake of the 1933 classic horror The Monkey’s Paw and a science fiction film called The Greys, following the huge success of his sci-fi Spanish-language thriller Before The Fall.

Gutierrez will direct The Monkey’s Paw, and has re-written a script from Todd Farmer, who is also writing the scripts for the new Hellraiser and Halloween III films. The original film was based on a story by W.W. Jacobs about a woman who brings her son back from the dead with the aid of a severed monkey’s paw.

Renowned US studio RKO Pictures, who were behind the original King Kong movie, starring Fay Wray, Orson Welles’ masterpiece Citizen Kane and Alfred Hitchcock’s thriller Notorious, will produce The Monkey’s Paw.  

The other project Gutierrez will direct is a science fiction film called The Greys, which is being written by Adam Cohen, and will be produced by Ted Field’s outfit Radar Pictures (The Box, The Chronicles of Riddick) and the Furst Brothers’ company Furst Films (The Cooler, Daybreakers).

“Both projects are at an advanced stage of development,” Gutierrez told ScreenDaily, with more details expected soon.

Gutierrez’ short film Brasil was pre-selected for the 2004 Oscars and his feature debut, the Spanish-language sci-fi thriller Before The Fall (Tres Dias), about society coping with an imminent meteorite was critically acclaimed and won numerous awards worldwide, including best director at the 2009 Screamfest in Los Angeles.