Damien Chazelle needs to take a minute to look around and realise just how quickly his career is exploding. He broke out a couple of years ago with “Whiplash,” and then he got his passion project made with Golden Age musical “La La Land” that grossed over $400 million and tied the record for most Oscar nominations, almost winning Best Picture thanks to an envelope snafu.
Chazelle became the youngest ever Best Director winner. And he’s about to reteam with Ryan Gosling for Neil Armstrong biopic “First Man,” which is set to be released by Universal Pictures late next year, and now he’s gone and sold one of his old screenplays called “The Claim.” Scott Clayton and his company Oceanside Media will produce the Film alongside Russell Levine of Route One Entertainment and Leon Clarance of Motion Picture Capital, while Motion Picture Capital will pay for the production in full.
‘The Claim’ will begin production this year
“The Claim” is slated to begin production this year with the intention of a release next year, so the producers will be talking to some studios to distribute. Chazelle was nominated for a writing Oscar this year for “la la land,” as well as back in 2014 for writing “Whiplash,” so producers would be foolish not to quickly snap up all the scripts he has at his disposal.
Chazelle’s screenplay “The Claim” is a suspense-filled mystery thriller about a single father who’s also an ex-con who’s searching for his daughter who’s been kidnapped. Sounds very “Taken”-y, doesn’t it? Well, here’s the twist: another couple claims that the missing child is theirs.
Script draws on Chazelle’s knack for the mysterious
Clayton says he is “excited” to be producing a movie written by Chazelle, who has proven his chops for writing mysterious thrillers with his work on the “10 Cloverfield Lane” screenplay. The producer says that “The Claim” is an “amazing project” that is “a mesmerising and bone-chilling thriller” and a “haunting film,” and he praises Chazelle as “a truly versatile screenwriter.”
Levine added that he believes “The Claim” is “one of Damien (Chazelle)’s best scripts.” His company’s most recent films include Netflix’s original film “Tallulah” starring Ellen Page and Allison Janney, and upcoming releases such as “Colossal” starring Anne Hathaway and Jason Sudeikis (with an odd premise in which a woman’s mental breakdown is directly linked to cataclysmic events on Earth), and “The Circle” starring Tom Hanks and Emma Watson, who have both been making headlines this past week.
