Media 8Entertainment, the sales and co-financing outfit behind Oscar-winner Monster, has agreed to co-finance, along with VIP Medienfonds, RunningScared, the new filmfrom The Coolerdirector Wayne Kramer.

Paul Walker isin final negotiations to head the cast of the $12m film which is a PulpFiction-style ensemblecrime movie following an assortment of characters trying to gain possession ofa gun owned by the mob and used to kill a corrupt cop. Walker plays a youngmobster charged with retrieving the gun after it is stolen by a bunch of kids.Chazz Palminteri, Laura Dern and Peter Sarsgaard are among the actors beinglined up to join the project.

A-list director Brett Ratner, himself hard at work ondirecting New Line thriller After The Sunset, is producing the film with Kramer's producingpartner Michael Pierce. The production entity is Kramer and Pierce's recentlyformed True Grit.

Shooting isscheduled to start in late May on Running Scared, which Kramer wrote and will completebefore moving on to The Sleeping Detective, a contemporary detective story which he sold to ParamountPictures.

ICM packaged Running Scared and will represent the North American sale withMedia 8, which will handle international sales.

Media 8, whichis majority-owned by Hong Kong entrepreneur Sammy Lee, recently sold its nearlycompleted drama The Upside Of Anger starring Joan Allen and Kevin Costner to New Line for domesticdistribution for $3m. Monster, which the company fully financed, has to date grossed more than$32m in the US through Newmarket Films.

Upcoming fromMedia 8 is Barbara Kopple's latest venture into fictional film-making Havoc about contemporary youth in Los Angeles.Anne Hathaway and Bijou Philllips star.

Walker recentlycompleted Chazz Palminteri's romantic ensemble Noel with Penelope Cruz and Susan Sarandon,and diving actioner Into The Blue for director John Stockwell and MGM.

The Cooler, which won an Oscar nomination for AlecBaldwin's supporting performance this year, was financed by ContentFilm anddistributed in North America by Lions Gate Films. It grossed $8.2m.