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Voltage Pictures is kicking off sales in Cannes this week on the child kidnapping thriller Stolen Girl starring Kate Beckinsale and Scott Eastwood.

Italy’s Ilbe is lead-producing and Voltage is executive producer on the €25m ($26m) feature, which started principal photography on Monday (May 13) in Puglia in Italy.

Stolen Girl follows Maureen Danning (Beckinsale), who partners with Robeson (Eastwood), a former Marine and child abduction specialist, after her ex-husband abducts their young daughter and flees to the Middle East.

Maureen and Robeson embark on a mission to Beirut and navigate a maze of betrayal, corruption, and espionage to bring the girl home.

Kate Beckinsale, Scott Eastwood and James Cromwell will star in kidnapping drama “Stolen Girl” directed by Britain’s James Kent.

“Stolen Girl,” which is in pre-production in Southern Italy’s Apulia region, is inspired by the real story of an American woman named Maureen Dabbagh who spent years tracking down her daughter who had been abducted and taken to the Middle East by the child’s father.

In the film, which starts out in 1993 in Ohio, Maureen’s 6-year-old daughter Amina is snuck out of the country by her ex-husband, Karim. After years of unsuccessful attempts to find her, Maureen intersects with a professional retriever of internationally abducted kids who promises to help her find Amina in exchange for her collaboration. Maureen eventually succeeds in tracking down her ex-husband and Amina in Beirut, where she will face “the most difficult decision of her life,” according to a provided synopsis.

Italy’s Ilbe,...

Tony Parsons’ novel Your Neighbour’s Wife is being eyed for adaptation.

U.K. screenwriters Rebecca Pollock and Kas Graham are attached to write the serial, which is being described as a “propulsive erotic thriller.” The book, which dropped in 2021, follows Tara Carver — a happily married mother who finds herself willing to go to extremes when a one-night stand reveals himself to be a manipulative stalker.

A+E Media Group, Stockholm Syndrome and Endor Productions are partnering on the project, which has yet to be placed at a platform, and will be taking it to market shortly. “A+E Media Group is thrilled to be working with Kas, Rebecca and our wonderful partners at Stockholm Syndrome and Endor to develop a bingeworthy new series based on Tony’s acclaimed IP,” said Alexandra Finlay, A+E Media Group VP of scripted international co-productions.

Parsons, a journalist who’s written for NME,...

Exclusive: Former ABC chief Paul Lee’s independent studio wiip is developing a TV series exploring the teenage years of Agatha Christie, the iconic British crime writer behind genre-defining characters including Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple.

Wiip has enlisted UK writers Rebecca Pollock and Kas Graham, who penned Ruth Wilson feature The Book Of Ruth, to work up the series, which will tell the story of how a precocious teenager mourning her father’s death became one of the most prolific and beloved mystery novelists of all time.

Set in the early 1900s in Devon, England, Pollock and Graham are planning on writing an action-packed drama, which will be titled Young Agatha. They said it would be a “dynamic and supercharged coming-of-age story” that would offer an “empowering and adventurous take on how she became the greatest mystery writer in history.”

The writing duo’s other credits include 2019 script Betty Ford,...

ViacomCBS International Studios is developing a TV series depicting the life of groundbreaking Spanish fashion designer Cristóbal Balenciaga with British director James Kent (“Testament of Youth”) on board to direct and Spain’s Frida Torresblanco to serve as executive producer.

Balenciaga was born in 1895 in Getaria, a fishing village in northern Spain, and moved to Paris in 1937 where he made his mark as an innovative master of haute couture revered by colleagues and contemporaries such as Christian Dior, Hubert de Givenchy and Coco Chanel.

During the 1950s and 1960s, Balenciaga reached the height of his career by unveiling previously unseen styles, fabrics and shapes, such as the tunic, the “baby doll” and shift dresses. Unlike many other designers, Balenciaga was very private and elusive, having given only two newspaper interviews during his 50-year career. On the day of his death, in 1972, Women’s Wear Daily ran the headline “The king is dead.

ViacomCBS International Studios is developing a series on Spanish fashion designer Cristóbal Balenciaga and has attached Testament Of Youth director James Kent to helm and Pan’s Labyrinth producer Frida Torresblanco to executive produce.

Written by Rebecca Pollock and Kas Graham, the project — which is slated to shoot in 2021 — will depict the life of Balenciaga, who helped lead a revolution in fashion, with his precision and perfectionism earning him the admiration of contemporaries, including Christian Dior, Hubert de Givenchy, and Coco Chanel.

In 1917, at the age of 22, he established his first fashion house in San Sebastian, and later opened fashion houses in Madrid and Barcelona, before moving to Paris in 1937, where his work won the admiration of an influential cosmopolitan clientele. In the 1950s, Balenciaga unveiled never-before-seen styles and shapes, which were considered radical designs at the time.

Torresblanco said: “I have long admired the genius of the greatest Spanish fashion designer in history.

Famed Spanish fashion designer Cristóbal Balenciaga is getting the biopic treatment, with ViacomCBS International Studios, a division of ViacomCBS Networks International, now developing a scripted series.

Director James Kent (Testament of Youth, MotherFatherSon, The Aftermath) and writers Rebecca Pollock and Kas Graham are signed onto the project, with award-winning independent film and TV producer, Frida Torresblanco (Pan’s Labyrinth, Disobedience) of Braven Films set to serve as executive producer.

Slated to begin production in 2021, the project is set to be the first made-for-television series to depict the life of one of the fashion industry’s most admired and influential designers. A deeply private ...

Famed Spanish fashion designer Cristóbal Balenciaga is getting the biopic treatment, with ViacomCBS International Studios, a division of ViacomCBS Networks International, now developing a scripted series.

Director James Kent (Testament of Youth, MotherFatherSon, The Aftermath) and writers Rebecca Pollock and Kas Graham are signed onto the project, with award-winning independent film and TV producer, Frida Torresblanco (Pan’s Labyrinth, Disobedience) of Braven Films set to serve as executive producer.

Slated to begin production in 2021, the project is set to be the first made-for-television series to depict the life of one of the fashion industry’s most admired and influential designers. A deeply private ...

Ruth Wilson and Matt Bomer are set to star in a feature film drama based on the true story of 1980s AIDS activist Ruth Coker Burks, an individual with knowledge of the project tells TheWrap.

Tony Award-nominee Michael Arden will make his feature directorial debut on the film that is being presented to buyers at this week’s European Film Market in Berlin. Arden will direct from a screenplay by Rebecca Pollock and Kas Graham.

Coker Burks, also known as the Cemetery Angel, is a former caregiver for AIDS victims and activist for AIDS awareness from Arkansas who during the height of the crisis in the 1980s gave up her salary in order to house and even bury those who suffered from the disease. “The Book of Ruth” will be set during 1983 and center on how a woman devoted to her work, her faith and her family comes to educate...

Exclusive: Ruth Wilson and Matt Bomer are attached to lead The Book of Ruth, a feature based on the true story of Ruth Coker Burks, a devout Christian divorcée and single mother from Arkansas who became a champion and caregiver for AIDS sufferers in 1980s America.

Michael Arden, the two-time Tony Award-nominated theater director who landed both those noms before the age of 35, will helm the pic, his feature film debut.

The screenplay comes from Rebecca Pollock and Kas Graham, whose 2019 script Betty Ford appeared on The Black List and was optioned by Ryan Murphy with Sarah Paulson attached.

Set in 1983, Burks (Wilson) lives a busy life, devoted to her work, her 6-year-old daughter Jessica, and her faith. When a handsome new neighbor (Bomer) turns out to be a gay New Yorker who has fled the cty and returned home after the death of his partner to AIDS, she decides...

The 15th annual Black List survey was revealed Monday December 16, and it includes 66 un-produced screenplays from up-and-coming literary talent. Results were pooled from a survey of more than 250 film executives, each of whom contributed the names of up to 10 favorite scripts that were written in, or are somehow uniquely associated with, 2019 and will not have begun principal photography during this calendar year. This year, scripts had to receive at least six mentions to be included on the Black List.

Since 2005, more than a third of the screenplays included in the annual Black List surveys have become produced films, and often to notoriety — such as “Argo,” “American Hustle,” “Juno,” “The King’s Speech,” “Slumdog Millionaire,” “Spotlight,” “The Revenants,” “The Descendants,” and “Hell or High Water.” Melina Matsoukas’s 2019 film “Queen & Slim,” written by Lena Waithe with a story co-authored by James Frey, was featured on the 2018 Black List.

Below is the...