 PRESSBOOK
::: GALLERY
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Cerenzie-Peters Productions
Cerenzie-Peters Prods. has picked up remake rights to the Thai hit horror series "Art of the Devil," whose third installment debuted as the No. 1 movie in the Asian country.
CP principals Michael Cerenzie and Christine Peters are producing alongside Eric Thompson and Tim Kwok of Convergence Entertainment.
While each installment of the series follows a new story line, what links them are the themes of revenge, black magic and mysterious deaths. CP will begin by focusing on the second installment, which featured a group of high school kids who fall victim to supernatural tattoos.
The latest movie, released April 3 in Thailand, earned more than $2.5 million during its first weekend to lead the domestic boxoffice. That beat out the $2.1 million raked in by "Jumper" and the $1.8 million grossed by "10,000 BC."
"Devil," which cost less than $1 million to make, has already been sold to more than 40 countries.
CP will produce the project via its genre division, which just signed a $100 million production financing partnership with Ghostrider Entertainment. Thompson, who recently joined CP to head the new genre arm, was responsible for acquiring the franchise from Bangkok-based Five Star Production, one of Thailand's oldest production and distribution houses.
Colin Geddes will co-produce.
"There is a wealth of material that we feel culturally translates extremely well from the pan-Asian regions, and we feel we have an amazing franchise on our hands," Peters said.
Meanwhile, CP is starting preproduction on horror film "Rites of Spring." Also, Kwok's Convergence is in preproduction on "Clocktower," helmed by Eric Valette ("One Missed Call").
top: Christine Peters
bottom: Michael Cerenzie
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It’s no secret that adapting a video game to the big screen can lead to box-office success. To further advance the marriage between the two mediums, Christine Peters and Michael Cerenzie recently announced the formation of CP Productions. Peters is an accomplished producer who is perhaps best known for producing “How To Lose A Guy in 10 Days,” one of the most financially successful romantic comedies in recent memory. Cerenzie also has several producing credits to his name, including the new Sidney Lumet film, “Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead,” which will make its world premiere at the 33rd Deauville Film Festival.
Peters has expressed interest in targeting video gamers for several years. In August 2004, she announced that she would be producing a film based on the popular Midway game, “Area 51.” After a long period with no new announcements, earlier this year, Peters revived the much-anticipated project by bringing acclaimed graphic novelist Grant Morrison onboard to write a new draft of the script. Peters says that the project continues to move forward and that the studio will likely receive a draft of the script sometime this fall. “We’re not quite ready with the script, so we’re still in development,” she explains. “We’ll probably be turning in a draft around October or somewhere around there.”
According to Peters and Cerenzie, Morrison’s involvement in “Area 51” provides added credibility to the project given his strong passion for games. “By [hiring Morrison], I was really impressed that Christine was doing it in a way that I knew a lot of these online guys and the younger guys want it done,” Cerenzie says. “I think a lot of times you have more failure when you try to replace some of the original graphic novelists or some of the conceptual people to do it a Hollywood way by throwing on writers that the [young people] don’t respond to. The end result is that [the young people then] don’t respond to the film.”
Peters and Cerenzie emphasize the importance of targeting the under-25 male demographic in a way that capitalizes on their previous interest in a game or graphic novel. “I looked at where these guys come from,” Peters says. “They’re not going to walk in off the street because they want to see a movie. They’re going to come with a real awareness level, a different awareness level than the under-25 female. They’re going to come in [to the theatre] having been walked in off of a video game or graphic novel.”
Reaching out to this younger audience also requires the implementation of new forms of promotion and marketing. Among other tactics, Peters plans to reach out to this demographic through their phones. “I’m on the board of a company called Xero Mobile,” she tells me. “We give free phones to college kids in exchange for their profiles. Once we know their profiles, we can match up the movies and the trailers to the specific profile of each user. If you love sci-fi and horror, we’re going to send you the next 'Saw' trailer, [for example]. We will then know once you’ve downloaded the trailer, because you get five free minutes for each thirty-second download. We then know for sure that you’ve seen that trailer. So, we can now track our audience. Of course, we also have a barcode system that you can use for discounts for tickets, so we’ll know exactly who has seen what and where.”
The first joint venture between Peters and Cerenzie will be a big-screen adaptation of Midway’s classic arcade game, “Joust.” “We took what we thought was the most important piece of the game aspect of it, which is this crazy ostrich fight,” Cerenzie says. “We vamped that up a lot and that comes in at the end of the film. But it really also is a character-driven piece like a Mad Max or a Gladiator, where there’s this guy in the future and [it follows] what he has to do to survive and what he has to do to regain himself through a loss of family and there’s other stuff in it, too.”
According to Peters and Cerenzie, this strong emphasis on character development will be a fundamental characteristic of all of their upcoming projects. “[In past video game adaptations], there has been too much reliance on just the gameplay aspect and not enough development in story and character,” Cerenzie says. “With kids today, they need to be constantly challenged and captivated. Everyone’s attention span is lowering.”
While video games will be a main focus for CP Productions, Peters and Cerenzie are not limiting themselves to game adaptations. “We’re doing the same things with the graphic novels and comic books and so forth,” Cerenzie says.
So, why do Peters and Cerenzie think they will be successful in adapting video games and graphic novels that no one else has touched in the past? Cerenzie says he and Peters will be able to bring a fresh vision to the content. “A lot of it is our vision of the material and not the material as it stands as itself,” he tells me.
He adds, “[Some of today’s top directors] know this material like the back of their hand. If you can come up with an inspired vision on a piece of material they dig, then it’s really easier to get them involved creatively with you and on board.”
Perhaps the biggest reason Peters and Cerenzie seem to be poised to succeed relates to their understanding that young people have a lot of choices of how to spend their entertainment dollars. Peters says a movie must impress all levels of awareness in order to be successful. “The whole entire summer has been all about CGI,” she says. “CGI today is huge. You have to be quite impressive in order to get those kids to sit there and watch it. They can stay home. They can sit on their computers. They can watch TV. They can go get a DVD. They can play games. It’s all about the event of the movie.”
Based on the experience and knowledge that Peters and Cerenzie possess, CP Productions will likely provide many reasons for all of us to go to the cinema.
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