Cannes Roundup: 'Bone In The Throat', Francis Coppola's 'Twixt', 'Canterville Ghost'

Bone In The Throat, Closer To Fine, Spy Vs. Stu
LA-based Dignity Film Finance president Maggie Monteith has three films the company is financing and producing this year. Titles in active development areBone In The Throat, an adaptation of Anthony Bourdain's bestselling novel produced by Lenny Beckerman and Peter Heslop (The King's Speech) and directed by commericials helmer Graham Henman, marking his feature debut. Henman is co-writing the adaptation with Mark Townsend. Also in the works is the romantic comedy Closer To Fine to be directed by Joshua Michael Stern (Swing Vote) who also scripted. Scott LaStaiti is producing. Stern is currently in preproduction on the recently announced biopic about Steve Jobs with Ashton Kutcher. Third project is Spy Vs. Stu, an action comedy to be directed by Hervé Renoh (Coursier). Screenplay was written by Allie Dvorin & Keith Mitchell and Gren Wells. Dignity also recently completed Theatre Of Dreams, directed by David Scheinmann and starring Brian Cox as Sir Matt Busby the legendary Manchester United Football manager. International sales are being handled by Intandem.

Twixt, The Echo
German distributor Pandastorm Pictures has picked up Francis Ford Coppola´s mystery-thriller Twixt from Pathé International and The Echo, from the exec producers of The Ring and QED International. Twixt tells the story of writer Hall Baltimore, the 'bargain basement Stephen King', who arrives in a small town for a book tour and gets caught up in a real murder. Cast includes Val Kilmer, Elle Fanning, Bruce Dern, and Ben Chaplin. In The Echo, an ex-convict (Jesse Bradford) has to live in his dead mother´s apartment as a condition of his parole. Spookiness and danger ensue.

The Canterville Ghost
Stephen Fry will voice the title character in The Canterville Ghost, a new CG animated feature film adaptation of the classic Oscar Wilde story. House's Hugh Laurie will join Fry for their first gig together in more than 13 years. In the story set in rural England at the end of the 19th century, everything changes when the Otis family from Boston buys the Canterville haunt and moves in. Directed by Kim Burdon and written by Keiron Self & Giles New, the project is produced by Gina Carter and Robert Chandler for Melmoth Films as a co-production between Fry's Sprout Pictures and Jerry Hibbert's animation company D'Arblay Films. Targeted for release at Christmas 2014, it will be animated in London and Toronto with CG animation from Arc Productions, the studio behind Shane Acker's 9 and Rocket Pictures' Gnomeo & Juliet.