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It may be Oscar weekend, but two hot scripts are in play Friday even as execs are polishing their shoes or finding ways to protect their finely coifed hair.
Missing Time by David O’Leary hit a select amount of buyers with Offspring, the production shingle run by Adam Shankman and Jennifer Gibgot attached to produce.
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The company is best known for the successful Step Up movie series and for Rock of Ages. But Missing Time is in a different wheelhouse: the plot is being kept secret but it’s been described as being in the vein of Close Encounters of the Third Kind, the 1977 Steven Spielberg focusing on UFOs.
Sources say that several directors and their production companies are also circling.
Winter’s Knight, meanwhile, is a spec package by relative newcomers in the scribe world, Ben Lustig and Jake Thornton, but has Kon-Tiki helmers Joachim Ronning and Espen Sandberg attached as directors. Lawrence Grey and Marc Platt on board as producers.
Knight is a re-imagining of the origin of Santa Claus, putting St. Nicholas in the mix with Vikings elements.
Sources say that Sony, Universal and Warner Bros. are in the mix of this bidding war.
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