Stephan Elliott (Easy Virtue, The Adventures Of Priscilla, Queen Of The Desert) is getting ready to direct the comedy A Few Best Men back home in Australia, working with the producing and writing team behind Death At A Funeral.

Writer Dean Craig and producers Laurence Malkin and Share Stallings have moved from funerals to love and marriage for this new film: the story is about what happens to a young groom and three best men after they arrive in Australia for a wedding.

Sales agent Arclight Films has used the US release of Neil LaBute’s remake of Death At A Funeral to go public with the news of the upcoming film. Arclight managing director Gary Hamilton will also get a producer credit.

Hamilton said a number of other pre-sales have been concluded and that the film has yet to be cast. Icon’s Mark Gooder confirmed to Screendaily.com that he has signed for Australian/New Zealand rights. Icon grossed a whopping $14.7m (A$15.9m) in these two territories with the original Death At A Funeral.

The fourth producer is Todd Fellman, who is based in Queensland, where the comedy is to be filmed. The intention is to claim the 40% producer offset (PO) available for Australian films.

Fellman is soon to start pre-production on Bait 3D, the first feature to be made as a co-production between Australia and Singapore that Arclight is also selling. Co-productions automatically qualify as Australian film for the purposes of claiming the PO.

The Arclight announcement notes that Dean Craig is adapting Christopher Buckley’s Florence Of Arabia for Charlize Theron, Stallings is just coming off The Little Engine That Could for Crest Animation and Universal, and Malkin is scheduled to direct the action thriller Cooked in Puerto Rico and is writing Warrior, with Chad Thumann, for Working Title Films.

 

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