Gans' 'Hill' piles up cast
Thesps flesh out vidgame adaptation
By ALISON JAMES
PARIS -- Sean Bean, Laurie Holden,
Deborah Kara Unger, Kim Coates and
Tanya Allen have joined the cast of Christophe Gans' horror pic
"Silent
Hill," which started shooting in Toronto on Monday with
Radha Mitchell in
the lead role.
Bigscreen adaptation of hit vidgame was recently acquired by
TriStar
Pictures in a negative pickup.
Mitchell stars as Rose, a woman searching for her lost daughter,
played by "Tideland" child thesp Jodelle Ferland. Bean
plays her husband
in the chiller, scripted by Roger Avary.
Holden is a police officer.
English-lingo pic, budgeted at $45 million-$50 million, is a
Franco-Canadian
co-production. Don Carmody, Victor Hadida, Andrew Mason and Samuel
Hadida exec produce; Samuel Hadida produced Gans' hit French-lingo
actioner
"Brotherhood of the Wolf."
The Hadidas' French distribution company
Metropolitan Filmexport will
release the pic in Gaul. Alliance Atlantis
will release in Canada.
Metropolitan and Focus Features are jointly handling international
sales.
"Christophe's a keen gamer, and he has wanted to adapt 'Silent
Hill'
ever since playing it to relax during the shoot of 'Brotherhood
of the
Wolf,' " said Samuel Hadida.
Hadida's production company Davis Films acquired the rights to
the
vidgame 18 months ago, convincing rights holder Konami Corp.
with a
half-hour videotape in which Gans laid
out how he would turn it
into a movie. Project was developed
in association with Konami.
Production team includes "Brotherhood" cinematographer
Dan Laustsen
and editors David Wu and Sebastien Prangere; "Hellboy"
costume designer
Wendy Partridge; and production designer Carole Spier ("League
of
Extraordinary Gentlemen"). Scary creatures were designed
by Patrick
Tatopoulos, whose credits include "I,
Robot" and "Underworld."
"Silent Hill" is Samuel Hadida's second big-budget
English-lingo pic
this year after Tony Scott's Keira Knightley thriller "Domino,"
which will
be released Stateside by New Line.