Ridley Scott‘s company, Scott Free Productions, has launched a new division called Ridley Scott Presents, and Olatunde Osunsanmi’s thriller “The Twisted” will be the first film produced under the label, it was announced Thursday. The project is also the first from Verve Ventures, the packaging, finance and sales division of the talent and literary agency Verve.
“Ridley Scott Presents: The Twisted” will be produced by Ridley Scott, Giannina Scott and Colet Abedi. The project was developed by Giannina Scott and Abedi for Scott’s company Cara Films. Verve client Osunsanmi will direct from a script by Ari Schlossberg (“Hide and Seek”).
“The Twisted” is set in the mountains of Sierra Nevada, where strange things are happening to the children at an isolated orphanage. Anna, a child psychologist with a haunted past, must team up with a parapsychologist and his cameraman to interview the children who are demonstrating mysterious behavior. Anna expects to find reasonable causes, but when the children take a terrifying and twisted turn for the worse, the scholars start to wonder if it’s the adults that are actually in danger.
Amy Beecroft and her Verve Ventures team will oversee worldwide sales for the film and introduce the project to buyers for the first time in Toronto this week. It’s the first film Verve Ventures has packaged and will be selling under the new shingle.
Toronto will be a busy festival for Ridley Scott, whose latest film “The Martian” will have its World Premiere on Friday, Sept. 11. Matt Damon stars alongside Jessica Chastain, Kristen Wiig, Jeff Daniels and Michael Pena.
“We are very excited to be launching this new label with such an exciting and provocative project. The goal is to produce genre films from filmmakers who have a unique voice and a captivating vision. We hope it’s the start of many more to come,” Ridley and Giannina Scott said in a joint statement.
“I am thrilled that ‘The Twisted’ is the first film for Verve Ventures and couldn’t have asked for better partners than Ridley, Gianinia and Colet. This is a great example of the high quality, filmmaker driven projects people can come to expect from Verve Ventures,” added Beecroft.
Osunsanmi’s credits include the upcoming features “Dark Moon” for Universal and “Eden” for Gold Circle Films. He also wrote and directed “The Fourth Kind” for Universal and has worked on a number of TV series including “Falling Skies,” “Under the Dome” and “Minority Report.”
The “Twisted” deal was brokered by Scott Free COO Justin Alvarado-Brown and Beecroft.