Bay's Platinum Dunes upcoming projects

By Stone Martindale Jan 8, 2007, 16:30 GMT

10/05/2006 - Michael Bay - The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning World Premiere - Grauman\'s Chinese Theatre - Hollywood, CA © David Gabber / Photorazzi

Michael Bay's production company Platinum Dunes had producers Brad Fuller and Andrew Form interviewed by ComingSoon.net, and they dished about the company's upcoming projects.

"The Hitcher" directed by Dave Meyers and starring Sean Bean, Sophia Bush, Zachary Knighton and Neal McDonough, opens in theaters on January 19th.

The film centers on couple Grace Andrews (Sophia Bush) and Jim Halsey (Zachary Knighton) as they road trip to spring break but foolishly pick up a mysterious hitchhiker John Ryder, a.k.a. The Hitcher (Sean Bean). The Hitcher implicates them in a horrific slaying and continues to shadow them, turning the open road into a showdown for survival.

Platinum Dunes has previously brought to the big screen remakes of "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre" and "The Amityville Horror," as well last year's "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning."

As we reported earlier, the company is remaking (audible sighs) Alfred Hitchcock's "The Birds" for Universal Pictures.

Fuller addressed the rumor about Naomi Watts being up for the lead role. "No actor or actress is going to commit to everything without a script. We've sat down with her and conceptually I think we all want to make the same movie, but until we have a script and a director, I think it's a little premature. But, we'll all talk and she's who we'd like to have as the lead."

Fuller added a new announcement would be forthcoming. "In the next two weeks, or the next week or so I think they'll announce it because they're starting to talk about a new writer to come on and write that. It definitely feels like it's moving."

For the "Untitled Friday the 13th OriginFilm," Form said that they are "working on a script right now. And I think that next year, it's not in the first two quarters for us, that movie, maybe at the end of the year next year. But right now we are still working on the screenplay."

He said that no director is yet confirmed .... "I mean, Jonathan Liebesman is attached to the movie right now, the director of 'Chainsaw.'"

But Fuller said it depends on Liebesman's schedule. "He's got a lot of things rolling around right now. So, if he's available when we have a script, we'd love to work with him again. We had a great experience with him."

Platinum is also working on an original script for Rogue Pictures called "Alone," but the next project in pre-production is "The Horsemen," a film directed by Jonas Åkerlund and shooting in Winnipeg Canada, which is described as being akin to "Se7en" and stars Dennis Quaid and Ziyi Zhang.

Quaid plays a detective grieving over his wife's recent death, and in the course of his investigating, discovers a connection between himself and the suspects in a serial killing spree linked to the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.