EXCLUSIVE: In a competitive situation, Paramount has snapped up the rights to Meet Jimmy, a short horror film that its Dutch filmmakers David-Jan Bronsgeest and Tim Koomen will turn into a horror film. There was intense interest in the short. Paramount had an inside track given that Platinum Dunes has its deal there and is coming off the sleeper horror hit A Quiet Place. Meet Jimmy is a co-production between Platinum Dunes and The Picture Company.
Full details are being kept quiet, but the short revolves around a mysterious podcast that once listened to, has horrific consequences, much worse than the occasional ear bleeding and unpleasantness caused by listening to the podcast I do periodically with Peter Bart. Sources compare Meet Jimmy to The Ring and A Nightmare On Elm Street, with a zeitgeist hook. Good Fear and Paradigm shopped the short early this week, and Paramount and the producers moved quickly to snap it up. They see it as a potential franchise.
Bronsgeest will direct and Shawn & Michael Rasmussen will write the script along with the shorts original writer, Koomen. The Rasmussens scripted Crawl, another high concept genre film for Paramount, which is now in production. Bronsgeest and Koomen met at the Netherlands Film Academy in 2011
Platinum Dunes Michael Bay, Andrew Form and Brad Fuller will produce along with The Picture Companys Andrew Rona and Alex Heineman. Good Fears Jake Wagner and Scott Stoops rep the filmmakers and writers, and will be exec producers. Koomen will be co-producer.
This is the third horror short The Picture Company has sold to be expanded into a feature this year. Larry shoots this fall at Amblin and Legendary picked up They Hear It earlier this month.
Paramounts Ashley Brucks will oversee for the studio.
The Rasmussens are repped by UTA, Good Fear and Shelley Surpin; Bronsgeest and Koomen are with Paradigm, Good Fear and Jeff Frankel.
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