Berlin 2013: Charlize Theron Attached to Star in 'Dark Places'

BERLIN -- Charlize Theron is attached to star in Dark Places, an adaptation of Gillian Flynn's novel that marks French director Gilles Paquet-Brenner's first American film.

Berlin International Film...

Paquet-Brenner, whose credits include the acclaimed Sarah's Key and Pretty Things, brought the project to Mandalay Vision several years ago with his longtime producing partner Stephane Marsil of Hugo Productions. Now, Exclusive Media has come aboard to fully finance and produce alongside Hugo, Mandalay and Theron's company Denvery & Delilah.

Exclusive's international arm will shop the project to foreign buyers at the European Film Market in Berlin, which gets underway today. A number of foreign sales agents were interested in representing the film, despite its dark storyline.

Theron will play Libby Day, who, at the age of 7, survived the massacre of her sisters and mother in what appeared to a Satanic cult ritual. She testifies against her brother, who is convicted of the killings, but 25 years later, a group obsessed with solving notorious crimes confronts her with questions about the horrific event and she begins her own investigation.

Dark Places was published in 2009 and was listed on the New York Times Best Seller List for more than 25 weeks. The book was also shortlisted for the Crime Writers' Association Ian Fleming Steel Dagger Award and won the Dark Scribe Magazine Black Quill Award for Dark Genre Novel of the Year.

I have been working with Gilles for more than ten years now and am very proud of the films weve produced, and especially the rec! ent worldwide success of Sarah's Key. Having developed Dark Places for the past few years as Gilles first American film, it is truly gratifying to be working with such fantastic partners in Denver & Delilah, Exclusive Media, and Mandalay Vision, Marsil said.

Chris Lytton negotiated the deal on behalf of Exclusive Media with Mandalay Vision president Matthew Rhodes and Mandalays counsel David Boyle.

Theron, who was last in theaters with Snow White and the Huntsman and Prometheus, will next be seen opposite Tom Hardy in George Miller's Max Max: Fury Road. She's repped by WME, Independent Talent Group and Think Tank Management.