EXCLUSIVE: Black Bear Pictures has acquired the Matthew Orton spec script Reason Of State and will produce and fully finance a taut political thriller unfolding over 24 hours inside one of the world’s most famous addresses: 10 Downing Street. Black Bear’s Teddy Schwarzman and Ben Stillman will produce with Silvertown Films’ Bennett McGhee and Wildgaze Films’ Finola Dwyer and Amanda Posey.
Reason Of State is the second recent spec to sell by the UK-based Orton, whose Untitled Eichmann Project landed by MGM after a bidding battle, with Chris Weitz now firmly attached as director. He previously sold an untitled sci-fi action pitch to MGM in a mid-six-figure pre-emptive deal. Reason Of State will be fast-tracked toward a production start.
Black Bear is in postproduction on the TWC-Dimension Films Stephen Gaghan-directed Gold with Matthew McConaughey, Edgar Ramirez and Bryce Dallas Howard, and will begin production shortly on the George Clooney-directed Suburbicon. The company, which made the Oscar-nominated hit The Imitation Game, is back with that film’s director and writer, buying Graham Moore’s scripted adaptation of his upcoming book Last Days Of Night, with Morten Tyldum attached to direct a drama about the race between Thomas Edison and George Westinghouse to bring electricity to the modern world.
Orton is represented by WME and The Agency, and managed by Grandview.
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