After teaming up on Australian/Chinese co-production 33 Postcards, Arclight Films and Singapore’s IFS Capital will again join forces to finance PJ Hogan’s comedy Mental.
The two companies will join Screen Australia in providing finance on the comedy (loosely based on Hogan’s life), which starts production next month.
The film, to be distributed in Australia, New Zealand and the UK by Universal, will reunite Hogan with Toni Collette after 1994’s smash hit Muriel’s Wedding. It’s the director’s first local film in almost two decades.
Late last year, Universal Pictures International Australasia’s managing director Mike Baard said it was “one of the most incredible scripts we’ve ever read”.
Jerry Zucker (The Naked Gun, Airplane, My Best Friend’s Wedding) and Janet Zucker (First Knight) both join Aussies Todd Fellman (A Few Best Men) and Jocelyn Moorhouse (Proof) on producing duties.
“Pairing PJ Hogan…with Toni Collette…presents a rare and wonderful opportunity to make a picture that is destined to be both artistically important and a hit at the box office,” Arclight’s managing director and Mental executive producer Gary Hamilton said in a statement.
Arclight, which is currently completing post production on 3D shark thriller Bait, will handle sales outside of the US, while LA-based Creative Artists Agency will handle the US rights.
Pauline Chan’s 33 Postcards, filmed over four weeks in Sydney and one in China last year, has its world premiere at the Sydney Film Festival tonight.