Producer Mark Gordon is teaming up with Columbia Pictures on SafetyLast, a contemporaryromance loosely based on Harold Lloyd's 1923 silent classic.

Keith Bunin wrote the screenplay and the picture is being producedby Gordon and Jennifer P Dana. Lloyd's granddaughter Suzanne Lloyd will serveas executive producer.

Lawrence Inglee will oversee the project for The Mark GordonCompany, while Columbia Pictures co-president of production Matt Tolmach andexecutive vice president of production Andrea Gianetti will do so for thestudio.

"Mark and I were talking one day about how we could a make a contemporaryfilm that incorporated the brilliantly choreographed scenes that were featuredin silent comedies of the early days," Inglee said,

"We started watching Harold Lloyd's films for inspiration andconcluded that Safety Last was the perfect template for a present day version. We called ourfriend Jen Dana, who always has an eye for new writers, and she introduced usto the talented Keith Bunin who pulled the whole idea together."

"I have a terrific and collaborative relationship with Markand Lawrence, and Safety Last will mark another wonderful endeavour together that will prove tobe a new type of American family film," Dana added.

Bunin has writtenscreenplays for Killer Films and Focus Features and his playwriting creditsinclude off-Broadway hit The Credeaux Canvas, as well as The World Over, The Principality OfSorrows, The King Of Clocks, and AJoke.

Gordon recently collaborated with Dana on Winter Passing for Focus Features, which stars ZooeyDeschanel, Ed Harris and Will Ferrell and is slated for a 2005 release.

Sony Pictures Releasing acquired domestic theatrical rights toLloyd's pictures through The Harold Lloyd Trust earlier this year, accountingfor virtually the entire library of shorts and features, silent and spokenword.

The distributorplans to release restored, uncut versions of the pictures through its RepertoryDivision in early 2005 with retrospectives in major cities.

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