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Exclusive: Spanish screenwriter Javier Gullón has been tapped to adapt Final Boarding, a horror film for Sony’s Screem Gems, based on a short story by Clarence Hammond.

Plot details for the film are under wraps. Screen Gems President Ashley Brucks optioned the story from Hammond, a former colleague from her time at Paramount Players, who will produce.

This marks the second studio horror project that Gullón has lined up recently, following his pitch sale of the Sarah Pinsker novella Two Truths and a Lie to Walter Hamada’s 18hz and Paramount. Prior to that, Gullón’s hot thriller spec The Bet sold preemptively to Warner Bros with 42 producing.

Establishing himself recently as one of the industry’s most sought-after writers of elevated horror, Gullón most famously wrote Denis Villeneuve’s Enemy, an A24 psychological thriller starring Jake Gyllenhaal. Plot details for both of his other upcoming projects are under wraps,...

Julia Louis-Dreyfus was one of the main attractions of the hit NBC series Seinfeld. The brainchild of comedian Jerry Seinfeld, many of its storylines were inspired by real-life experiences of Seinfeld’s life. The series ran for 9 successful seasons and is considered one of the most influential sitcoms of all time.

A still from Seinfeld

The show in total consisted of 180 episodes throughout its entire run and while the makers pulled off some risky one-liners and jokes through them, one episode proved to be too extreme for the cast and they had to pull the plug on the episode. The details of that episode titled The Bet have been released online and one can understand why they did not go forward with the episode.

Julia Louis-Dreyfus Was Against Going Forward With Seinfeld Episode The Bet Julia Louis-Dreyfus’s rejection of one controversial Seinfeld episode led to its cancellation

Jerry Seinfeld...

In his ongoing rally against the culture of political correctness, Jerry Seinfeld says that there is plenty of material on his namesake show that couldn’t get made today – and he’s not talking about the Soup Nazi.

As far as moments that Seinfeld doesn’t think could make the show had it been made in today’s climate, he said, “We did an episode of the series in the nineties where Kramer decides to start a business of having homeless people pull rickshaws because, as he says, ‘They’re outside anyway.’ Do you think I could get that episode on the air today?” He added that things would have to be far more PC, referring to season nine’s “The Bookstore.” “We would write a different joke with Kramer and the rickshaw today. We wouldn’t do that joke. We’d come up with another joke.” Seinfeld could have...

"Seinfeld" could be an incredibly mean show. For peak cruelty, it's hard to top "The Invitations" in which George's fiancée Susan drops dead after licking too many envelopes. The finale is self-consciously nasty in the way it indicts viewers for having been emotionally invested in the lives of these relentlessly awful people for nine seasons. My favorite might be "The Yada Yada," where Jerry is called out as an "anti-dentite" for his dim view of dentists. But the series, created by Seinfeld and Larry David, knew how to go dark without alienating its audience — which is why they scrapped a Season 2 episode called "The Bet."

Unless you're a "Seinfeld" superfan, you might not know of this episode. If you are a "Seinfeld" superfan, you know "The Bet" quite well and have surely read the script that got leaked to the "Lost Media" subreddit earlier this month. It's been something of...

Exclusive: Netflix’s film division has preemptively acquired a pitch for an untitled law school thriller from Holland, Michigan‘s Andrew Sodroski, sources tell Deadline.

Netflix could not be reached for comment. While plot details are unknown at this time, the pitch is said to be described as a contemporary spin on The Firm meets The Wolf of Wall Street. Ben Pugh and Peter Dealbert will produce for the L.A. and London-based management and production company 42.

Most recently, 42 worked with Netflix as a producer on its sci-fi actioner Outside the Wire starring Anthony Mackie, which debuted at #1 and was watched by 66 million households in its first quarter on the platform. Sodroski’s pitch marks 42’s second pre-emptive sale in a row on the heels of The Bet, a thriller spec from Enemy‘s Javier Gullón that sold to Warner Bros for what we’re told was a significant figure.

Exclusive: Warner Bros is finalizing a deal to preemptively acquire The Bet, a hot spec from Spanish screenwriter Javier Gullón (Enemy), according to multiple sources.

The studio declined comment. No deal figure was given.

While plot details are under wraps, the project has been described as a twisty, female-led thriller with pitch-black humor, set at a glittering destination for the ultra-rich. Ben Pugh, Peter Dealbert and Josh Varney will produce for 42.

A Goya Award nominee, Gullón is best known for scripting the surreal psychological thriller Enemy for director Denis Villeneuve. Released by A24 in 2014 after world premiering at the Toronto Film Festival, the film starred Jake Gyllenhaal as a man on a quest for his exact look-alike, after spotting him in a movie. Mélanie Laurent, Sarah Gadon, and Isabella Rossellini co-starred.

Gullón has sold and adapted numerous sci-fi short stories at auction for film and TV including Neanderthal (fka N...

In the history of Rod Serling's original run of "The Twilight Zone," the season 2 episode "The Silence" sticks out like a sore thumb. The episode in no way falls under the categories of science fiction or fantasy, instead opting to tell a disturbingly human story about an extreme bet between two men. Wealthy Archie (Franchot Tone) bets fellow men's club member — and known chatterbox — Jamie (Liam Sullivan) that he can't spend a year in silence.

The episode unfolds in an odd and surprising but never unbelievable fashion. Jamie accepts the bet, hoping to win $500,000 (about 5 million dollars today). In an attempt to surveil his colleague and prevent cheating, Archie erects a public glass room in which Jamie will be trapped for the year. Archie also spends much of his time taunting Jamie with lies about his wife, but Jamie doesn't fall for the low blow. At year's end, Archie...

Although the sitcom was known for tackling edgy subjects, Seinfeld had two episodes that were deemed too controversial by cast and executives alike. This is surprising because, generally, creators Jerry Seinfeld and Larry David seemed like they were able to make jokes about anything in their "show about nothing". Among some of the envelope-pushing comic situations across Seinfeld's nine seasons were Jerry being caught making out with his date during a screening of Steven Spielberg's Holocaust drama Schindler's List, and George Costanza (Jason Alexander) getting into a fight with an immunocompromised "bubble boy".

One of the most notable examples of Seinfeld pushing the envelope in terms of what network television would allow is the masturbation storyline in "The Contest" from Seinfeld's best season. To avoid the censors, writer Larry David got incredibly creative in how he discussed the subject without ever actually using the word. Given David and the...

The film set in the 1890s shows that the Russian influence on the region has not changed in the last 130 years. Bulgarian director Svetoslav Ovcharov, who has made a name for himself by directing both period dramas and historical documentaries, as well as by writing recent Bulgarian successes such as Thirst, Sister and Irina, is currently in early post-production with the period drama The Bet. The project is being staged by Bulgaria’s Omega Films, represented by producer Svetla Tsotsorkova, and by Romanian outfit Avva Mmix Studio, represented by Andreea Dumitrescu. The screenplay, written by Ovcharov, is set in Sofia in the 1890s. The story centres on the power struggle between the Bulgarian prime minister (Zachary Baharov) and a major (Assen Blatechki), who conspires with Russian forces against the Pm. The major gets a Romanian woman (Romanian actress Ofelia Popii) involved in this conspiracy, a lady whom both he and.

Exclusive: Production began this week in Hamilton, Ontario on actress Katie Boland’s (The Bet) directorial debut We’re All In This Together.

Having adapted Amy Jones’ novel of the same name, Boland will also star in the film as twins alongside Martha Burns (Alias Grace) and Alisha Newton (Heartland). The film will follow the dysfunctional Parker family which unravels after a woman goes over a waterfall and a video goes viral.

Producers are Jay Firestone of Prodigy Pictures, Gail Harvey of Straight Shooters and John Laing of Urban Post alongside Boland and Paula Brancati. Mark Pancer is associate producer. The film was made with financial support from Telefilm Canada and The Harold Greenberg Fund.

“Adapting this incredible book for the big screen and sitting in the director’s chair have been such a gratifying experience,” said Boland. “Playing twin characters Finn and Nicki Parker is an actor’s dream,...

Exclusive: TV writer and producer Nancy Miller is set to pen the script for the feature adaptation of The Shepherd Who Didn’t Run: Father Stanley Rother, Martyr from Oklahoma novel by Maria Ruiz Scaperlanda. Miller will also produce the spiritual thriller with James Presnal (The Bet) and Jonathan de la Luz (Harbinger).

The project is a Film Fluent and Luzworks production, in association with Takashi Entertainment. It centers on the story of Father Stanley Rother’s journey from small-town farm boy, to flunking out of the seminary, to achieving his dream of the priesthood. He volunteered to go to Guatemala, a dangerous assignment in the midst of the bloody civil war waged against the Mayans.

When Stan learned he was marked for death, he was ordered back to Oklahoma, where he talked the Archbishop into sending him right back to Guatemala. He knew he was prey to those hunting him,...