- Italy’s Colorado Films is teaming up with bestselling Italo author Donato Carrisi, whose serial killer thriller "The Whisperer" has sold millions of copies around the world, to form a new company specialized in producing Italian thrillers for the international film and TV market.
The core of shingle, which will be called Gavila, are two Carrisi properties, "The Whisperer," which takes its cue from six severed arms found arranged in a circle in a forest clearing, and "The Girl in the Fog," about the disappearance of a teen girl in the Alps.
Gavila is in advanced talks for German production powerhouse Constantin Films to board both projects; it’s also in talks with Zodiak France on "Whisperer" and with Universal/Focus Features on "Fog," which Carrisi will direct.
Carrisi will be the head writer on the "The Whisperer" skein, which will be shot in English. Cranky criminologist Goran Gavila is assigned the serial killer case in tandem with young female police officer Mila Vasquez. "The Whisperer," which has been translated in 24 languages, has made a major international splash, on a scale comparable to Swedish sensation Stieg Larsson ("The Girl With the Dragon Tatoo"). "Whisperer" is published in the U.S. by Little Brown.
"The Girl in the Fog" will be Carrisi’s feature film debut and could also mark a return to Universal producing in Italy after a long hiatus.
Colorado is a prominent Italo production shingle known for "I’m not Scared" by Gabriele Salvatores, among other titles, and more recently as backers of Luca Guadagnino’s "I am Love" and Laura Bispuri’s transgender pic "Sworn Virgin."
Carrisi separately has a deal with FX and Murdoch-owned paybox Sky for an English-language TV series based on his dark "The Lost Girls of Rome," which is about a secret confessional court at the Vatican and said to be similar in tone to David Fincher’s "Seven."
