MGM Acquires Fantasy Comedy Script

LOS ANGELES, May 2: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Pictures has acquired Michael Galvin and Peter Speakman’s fantasy comedy spec
script Executive VP David M. Murch’s Adventures in Zametherea for development and feature film production.

Executive VP David M.
Murch’s Adventures in Zametherea
is the story of a father-and-son relationship. It begins when a cynical
investment banker is forced to revisit the magical world of his childhood
imagination, and then he must team up with his 10-year-old son to save the
fantastical creatures of this real-life land of make-believe and make good on a
forgotten boyhood promise.

Rick Benattar, whose
credits include Shoot 'Em Up and
The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, will serve as producer on the film. Jim Wedaa, who produced Buena
Vista Pictures’ Mission to Mars,
will also produce through his company Jim Wedaa Productions. Rick Alexander will
also serve as a producer on Executive VP David M. Murch’s Adventures in
Zametherea.

Cale Boyter, the executive
VP of production, and Becky Sloviter, the VP of production, will oversee the
project for MGM.

Galvin and Speakman began
their careers writing a film adaptation of Galvin’s novel Freak Talks About
Sex, which starred Steve Zahn and
was shown on Cinemax.

“This script is a big idea
that’s irreverent as it is family friendly and told through the eyes of an
imaginative little boy,” said Boyter. “It speaks to the kid in all of us.”

—By Irene Lew