During the holiday hiatus, not a creature was stirring — except Sheldon Turner.
The feature scribe’s reps closed out the final minutes of 2003 negotiating a mid- against high-six-figure sale of the thriller “Scrawl” to MGM Pictures.
“Scrawl” follows a disgraced detective who takes a menial job delivering cash to ATMs at rest stops along a rural Georgia highway. His monotony is broken when he comes to believe that a girl has been abducted along the route, based on increasingly desperate messages scrawled at the rest stops.
Pic is being produced by Jennifer Klein, who last October set up the production shingle Apartment 3B Prods. Currently under a two-year first-look production deal at the Lion, Klein is the former head of Michael Bay shingle Bay Films and co-prexy of the now dissolved Mutual Film Co.
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Pic is being overseen by MGM production prexy Toby Jaffe and exec Eric Baires.
Turner, who most recently paired with John Woo to write the hourlong gun-running drama “Hardware” for 20th Century Fox, is no stranger to MGM. Last July, he was tapped by the Lion to adapt psychological thriller “Pursuit” for the bigscreen, with Will Smith and James Lasseter’s Overbrook Entertainment producing with Bob Wunch.
Turner, who is also writing Par’s remake of “The Longest Yard” for Adam Sandler’s Happy Madison Prods., was repped in the deal by Endeavor, managers Benderspink and attorney David Fox.
