Dark adult dramas are highly risky bets, but four major studios are clamoring to pay a premium for Peter Jackson's next movie, "The Lovely Bones."
Sony Pictures, Warner Bros., Universal Pictures and DreamWorks SKG have each put a bid on the table to finance Jackson's costly screen adaptation of Alice Sebold's 2004 best-seller about the aftermath of the rape and murder of a 14-year-old girl who narrates the story from heaven.
Sony was the first to bid Monday, according to a person involved in the negotiations. By late Tuesday, 20th Century Fox and Walt Disney Studios, both of which had expressed interest, had dropped out over cost concerns.
Jackson's deal proposal stipulates that a studio must guarantee a production budget of $65 million and set aside $10 million in the event of cost overruns. That doesn't include Jackson's directing and producing fees, which could bring the production price tag to an eye-popping $90 million.
In the bids, each studio also had to include a marketing budget detailing how it would promote the movie worldwide. The cost of marketing this kind of film in North America alone would be at least $40 million, and launching an Oscar campaign would cost an additional $10 million to $15 million.
"It's insanely expensive," said one top executive who passed on the project, estimating that a studio would have to spend some $150 million to make and promote a movie that could be commercially challenged.
"I couldn't justify the numbers," said the executive, who asked for anonymity because of the secrecy of the discussions.
Equally important to Jackson is that the studios present details on when the film would be released in theaters and what other movies on that studio's slate would compete with it.
The script was sent out with a CD of 17 period songs from the 1970s that Jackson plans to use in the film, including tunes by such artists as Van Morrison, Jefferson Airplane, and Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons. The script is annotated with cues for when each song should be played.
Jackson plans to begin production in October in Pennsylvania, where Sebold's story is set. Special effects would be shot in Jackson's New Zealand studio.
The big question is the commercial viability of an intense adult drama like "The Lovely Bones." With the rare exception of movies such as DreamWorks' 1999 sleeper hit, "American Beauty," which won a best-picture Oscar and grossed $353 million worldwide, darker themed dramas typically struggle.
