Gus Van Sant Partners With Bret Easton Ellis On “The Golden Suicides”

Posted in Company Updates and Fifty Pills and Golden Suicides and Veronika 10:36 pm on October 13, 2009

Almost two years after the bizarre double suicide of Theresa Duncan and Jeremy Blake, glamorous young couple, luminaries of New York’s multi-media art world, their story is set for a big screen adaptation. PalmStar Entertainment, Celluloid Dreams, K5 Film and Ithaka Entertainment have acquired the rights to the enthralling Vanity Fair article “The Golden Suicides,” by Nancy Jo Sales, and have partnered with Gus Van Sant and Bret Easton Ellis to develop the picture. Ellis said of the project, “We believe there is a beautiful and tragic love story here that needs to be told.”

Ellis will write the screenplay in collaboration with Van Sant who’s latest film “Milk” won two 2009 Academy Awards among several nominations. Ithaka Entertainment’s Braxton Pope will also produce alongside PalmStar’s CEO Kevin Frakes and Celluloid Dreams’ Hengameh Panahi. Patrick Siaretta and K5 Film’s Oliver Simon and Daniel Baur will serve as executive producers.

The true story revolves around the short lives of Duncan and Blake, who shared a radiant, obsessive love, an uncommon bond formed in no small part by their almost religious belief in the concept of bohemia. Duncan made a name for herself as one of the first designers of video games for girls, and Blake was an artist whose “digital paintings”—kaleidoscopic abstractions shown on plasma screens—had made him a rising art star. Together, they were a magnetic social force, who fast became the toast of the downtown New York scene. But out of nowhere, they developed a consuming belief that complex forces involving the government and various religious organizations were conspiring against them, which began a strange, downward spiral into a world of paranoia that resulted in Duncan taking her own life on July 10, 2007. In a Romeo and Juliet-esque twist of fate, it was Blake who first discovered her body on the floor of their bedroom, and it was Blake who, a week later, ended his own life by walking into the Atlantic Ocean.

Founded in 2004 by Kevin Frakes and Stephan Paternot, PalmStar Entertainment (www.palmstar.com), is focused on developing literary driven properties and true stories, and has a number of projects in development including another Bret Easton Ellis project, “Lunar Park.” PalmStar’s head of development and production, Courtney Andrialis, will serve as a Co-Producer on the film.

At the forefront of international production, development, sales and financing for more than 15 years, Celluloid Dreams has been responsible for developing the careers of some of the most important and respected film directors of our times. One of the few truly independent production and sales outfits, Celluloid’s most recent successes include Samuel Moaz’s “Lebanon”, which was just acquired by Sony Pictures Classics for US rights, after having won the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival; and it’s two co-produced films In Competition at this year’s Cannes Film Festival: Marco Bellocchio’s “Vincere” and Jacques Audiard1s “A Prophet”, which came away with the Grand Prix and also considerable critical praise and sales. Always at the cutting edge of technology Celluloid, in conjunction with The Auteurs and The Criterion Collection runs the world’s first global online social community and independent film distribution network. Offering a more cost effective way of reaching a global audience as well as monetizing gross revenues for rights owners.

Braxton Pope, who has a production deal with Lionsgate, recently wrapped the indie feature “Shrink” with Kevin Spacey and Robin Williams, in addition to the 2007 film “The Take” starring John Leguizamo and Tyrese Gibson, which Sony operated Destination Films released theatrically.

A young company founded in 2007 in Germany and the UK, K5 is on the fast track to becoming one of the hottest, new production and international sales companies, having recently handled foreign sales for Aaron Schneider’s Toronto hit “Get Low” starring Robert Duvall, Bill Murray, Sissy Spacek and Lucas Black, which Sony Pictures Classics just acquired for North American release in Toronto. Other titles on K5’s impressive slate include Tom McCarthy’s “The Visitor”, for which Richard Jenkins received an Academy Award nomination for Best Actor last year.

 

 

Project Press

 

Press by date