1492, CJ Entertainment unveil first projects

Chris Columbus’ 1492 Pictures and Asian studio CJ Entertainment have unveiled the first development projects under the three-year deal they announced late last year to jointly produce films for a global audience.

Killer Pizza is a coming-of-age comedy about a 14-year-old  who lands a summer job at a pizza place that is a front for a monster-hunting organization. The film will be based on Greg Taylor’s novel and will also be produced by Raffaella de Laurentiis from Raffaella Productions. Adam Green (Hatchet) is set to write the script.

Carpe Demon, an adaptation of Carpe Demon: Adventures of a Demon-Hunting Soccer Mom by Julie Kenner, is about a stay at home mother charged with cleaning up her demon-ridden small town. Columbus will write the screenplay based on earlier drafts by Kevin and Dan Hageman and Michael Dougherty and Dan Harris.

1492 and CJ will also come on board to produce The Graveyard Book along with Wayfare Entertainment, Framestore and Neil Gaiman. The live-action film, being written and directed by Neil Jordan, is based on the Newbery Award-winning book by Gaiman (Coraline) about an orphan raised by ghosts. CJ Entertainment will co-finance and distribute in Korea and Japan.

In a statement, Columbus said: “We are incredibly excited about our partnership with CJ Entertainment as we announce our new slate of projects.  The projects we are developing together meet our shared goal of producing movies for the global marketplace.  We see this as just the beginning of many terrific movies together.” 

“We are thrilled to announce these three projects with 1492 Pictures today,” added CJ Entertainment CEO Katharine Kim. ‘This is a result of fantastic teamwork between two companies in less than six months’ time. We strongly believe they are the right type of projects for both of us. They definitely have the potential to travel across cultures with global appeal.”