CBS Films Nabs Helen Mirren's 'Winchester' For the U.S.

09/08/2016 - CBS Films has acquired the U.S. distribution rights to the Helen Mirren-starrer Winchester. The Oscar-winner will play Sarah Winchester, the eccentric heiress to Winchester Repeating Arms Company fortune, who spent her life constructing an enormous mansion, the famed Winchester Mystery House, complete with secret passages and trap doors, in order to keep at bay what she thought were the angry spirits of the people killed by her family's firearms. The thriller will follow a skeptical San Francisco psychiatrist Eric Price, who is sent to the home to evaluate Winchester's mental health, only to discover she may have been right to be concerned.  Predestination helmers Michael and Peter Spierig will direct Winchester from a screenplay written by Tom Vaughan. Production will begin in March 2017, with filming taking pace on location at the Winchester Mystery House in San Jose, California and in Australia. “We were immediately obsessed with the Spierig brothers intelligent and twisted take on a great American legend and could not be more excited to be working with the Spierig brothers and Dame Helen Mirren to bring this film to audiences,” said CBS Films EVP of Acquisitions Scott Shooman. Brett Tomberlin will produce under his Imagination Design Works banner, along with Blacklab Entertainment’s Tim McGahan. Benedict Carver, Daniel Diamond and Tobin Armbrust are executive producing, along with Andy Trapani, Toni Lianos, Brian Gilbert, Marc Shipper and Simon Oakes. WME negotiated the deal on behalf of the filmmakers. 

(Hollywoodreporter FILM)