Corona | Coming Attractions

Ian Fried's Gaslight spec script landed at a healthy position on the recent 2011 Black List of unproduced screenplays. Now the writer has reason to celebrate some more as Hammer Films has purchased Gaslight and put it into development.

A Victorian take on The Silence of the Lambs, Gaslight takes place in late 19th century London. Unbeknownst to its citizens, Jack the Ripper was caught and secretly locked away in an insane asylum. But then a new series of grisly killings starts up, and all the victims share one identifying mark in common: two twin puncture marks on their neck. Scotland Yard decides that it will take a killer to catch a killer so it turns to the Ripper and his diabolical thinking process to help them solve the identity of the killer and bring an end to their murder spree.

Fried wrote another script that got on the 2010 Black List called The Ever After Murders, a similar tale in that it involved sleuthing to find out who was killing a group of people (but in this case the victims were all fairies.)

Fried's work captured the attention of Legendary Pictures. The writer has been working with the production company on a supernatural themed action film titled Spectral.

Meanwhile, Hammer Films is enjoying the $21 million dollar opening weekend for The Woman in Black, its latest release starring a post-Harry Potter Daniel Radcliffe. The next Hammer film to shoot is called The Quiet Ones, and it concerns a professor who uses his students to manifest poltergeist activity. Rumor has it that Michael Sheen is in talks to headline that film, scheduled to shoot in South Africa later this year.