Millennium Films has acquired remake rights to the critically acclaimed Israeli box office hit “Hunting Elephants,” TheWrap has learned.
Original producer Ehud Bleiberg (“The Iceman”) will produce through his Bleiberg Entertainment banner along with Christa Campbell and Lati Grobman of Campbell Grobman Films.
Original filmmaker Reshef Levi will return to direct from a script he’s co-writing with Barry Schwartz. Millennium’s Avi Lerner will executive produce with Trevor Short, Boaz Davidson and John Thompson.
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Released in 2013, the original “Hunting Elephants” is a comedy that follows Jonathan, a young man with severe social problems who is sent to a nursing home to live with his estranged grandfather, a hardened, bitter old man. There, he also meets his grandfather’s friend Nick. Both are former members of Lehi (a militant Zionist group) who robbed banks for their country during the British occupation. They team up with Jonathan’s English uncle, a frustrated Shakespearean actor, on a journey to rob the bank that has ignored their existence.
Patrick Stewart co-starred in “Hunting Elephants,” earned seven nominations from the Israeli Film Academy, including Best Film, Best Screenplay and Best Actor.
Campbell and Grobman are producing Millennium’s remake of “Day of the Dead,” which has Mark Tonderai attached to direct. Their company is also developing a “Red Sonja” movie.
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Millennium Films produces, finances and sells international rights on five-to-eight star-driven feature films per year, budgeted between $20 million and $80 million. It’s best known for the lucrative “Expendables” franchise and the recent hit “Olympus Has Fallen.”
Millennium Films is run by co-founders Avi Lerner and Trevor Short, and a senior executive team that includes Mark Gill (president,) Boaz Davidson (head of development and creative affairs,) John Thompson (head of production,) John Fremes (head of international sales) and Lonnie Ramati (head of business affairs).
The company’s upcoming slate includes “Before I Go To Sleep” starring Colin Firth and Nicole Kidman; “Eliza Graves” starring Kate Beckinsale, Jim Sturgess, Ben Kingsley and Michael Caine; and “The Expendables 3.”
Millennium Films also operates full-service studios in Shreveport, Louisiana and Sofia, Bulgaria.