After a fierce bidding war, Senator International announced has announced that Sony's Screen Gems has acquired North American rights to Boogeyman, the first film produced by Ghost House Pictures, the genre label set up by Sam Raimi, Rob Tapert and Senator. Senator International president Joe Drake made the deal with Screen Gems president Clint Culpepper and senior vice president of business affairs Gary Hirsch.
"We have great regard for the team at Screen Gems and, given their proven track record in releasing highly commercial and successful pictures such as Resident Evil and The Mothman Prophecies we know that we've found the perfect home for building Boogeyman into the next great horror franchise," Drake said in a statement.
Boogeyman is currently in pre-production and is due to begin principal photography in April. Mehdi Norowzian, who received an Oscar nomination in 2000 for the short film Killing Joe, will direct from a screenplay by Eric Kripke, Juliet Snowden and Stiles White with Raimi and Taper handling producing duties. The story centres on a young man who returns to his childhood home to confront a monstrous entity that may or may not be a figment of his imagination.
Ghost House was set up to produce horror, sci-fi and fantasy pictures and has also boarded the vampire thriller 30 Days Of Night, based on the comic book series by writer Steve Niles, illustrator Ben Templesmith and comic book publisher, Idea & Design Works. Niles is on board to develop the screenplay.
Senator International will fully finance and handle worldwide rights to all Ghost House Pictures titles, with Senator's executive vice president of motion pictures Nathan Kahane overseeing daily creative operations. Creative executive editor Jim Miller will assist on Boogeyman. Michael Kirk, who worked with Raimi on Spider-Man, will act as creative executive for the Ghost House Pictures slate.
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