The producers of thriller Reclaim have shifted the location from Australia to Puerto Rico after Screen Australia turned down their pitch for investment.
Erskineville Kings director Alan White is set to direct the film written by Luke Davies (Candy) and Carmine Gaeta. The plot follows an American couple, Steven and Shannon, who are mourning the death of their unborn child in a car accident.
The screenplay originally had the couple visiting Australia to adopt an Afghan child, who mysteriously vanishes from their hotel room, but the location has changed to Puerto Rico and the girl they’re adopting is an orphan from Haiti.
Casting is yet to be finalised but Jacki Weaver and John Cusack are attached. Shooting is due to start in Puerto Rico in mid-October.
“We’re disappointed we have to move offshore,” one of the producers, Ian Sutherland, told IF. Screen Australia rejected the project despite a significant number of international pre-sales negotiated by Arclight Films and the attachment of Transmission Films.
The producers are Sutherland and Australian director Robert Luketic via their company Origin Productions, Brian and Josh Etting of L.A. –based Garlin Pictures, Arclight’s Gary Hamilton and Mike Gabrawy, plus Fredrik Malmberg and Silvio Muraglia.
Weaver is set to play the owner of the international adoption agency in Puerto Rico. Cusack is cast as a former Marine and Afghanistan veteran who has an altercation with the couple.
The L.A.-based White made his directing debut with Erskineville Kings, a 1999 drama that starred Hugh Jackman and Joel Edgerton. His first US film was the 2006 thriller Broken, with Heather Graham, Jeremy Sisto, Tess Harper and Linda Hamilton.
Sutherland, whose day job is general manager, alternate content at Event Cinemas’ parent Amalgamated Holdings, is a former executive vice president, international theatrical distribution for MGM in LA. He and Luketic have been developing projects for the past few years. Luketic broke through in Hollywood with Legally Blonde and has since directed films including 21, Killers, The Ugly Truth and Paranoia.