April 21, 2017 - 18:24 AMT
Lionsgate nabs “Smart House” thriller from “Aquaman” helmer

Lionsgate has acquired rights to the thriller “Smart House” with James Wan attached to produce and Alexandre Aja directing, Variety said.

“Smart House” is based on an original idea by Wan — whose credits include the Conjuring franchise, “Furious 7” and the upcoming “Aquaman.” He will produce the film under his Atomic Monster company banner with head of production Michael Clear.

Aja, whose directing credits include “Piranha 3D” and “The Hills Have Eyes,” will direct from a script by Brad Keene. Aja is also a producer on the film along with Gregory Levasseur.

“Smart House” is a thriller about a family in the witness protection program placed in the custody of a state of the art, autonomous ‘smart house.’ When a group of assassins locates the family, the house goes into a lethal defense mode.

“We are delighted that Smart House brings James Wan and Alex Aja back to Lionsgate for this cool, of-the-moment thriller,” said Lionsgate president of acquisitions and co-productions Jason Constantine. “We had the privilege of being involved with James’ directorial debut with ‘Saw’ and with Alex on one of his earlier films, ‘High Tension.’ The idea of combining their talents into one project for the first time is exciting for us and genre fans everywhere.”

Wan directed Lionsgate’s original “Saw” movie, which was his first feature film, and executive produced all its sequels. He was also the director of the first two Insidious films. Atomic Monster has produced the films “Lights Out,” “Annabelle,” the upcoming “Annabelle 2” and “The Nun” along with the CBS/Lionsgate television series “MacGyver,” airing on CBS.

The deal was negotiated for Lionsgate by Robert Melnik, Jason Constantine and Eda Kowan. Attorney David Fox, Paradigm and Stacey Testro International negotiated the deal on behalf of Atomic Monster. WME, attorney Adam Kaller and manager Sara Bottfeld negotiated the deal for Aja. Paradigm, attorney Marko Kuo and manager Peter Katz of Story Driven negotiated the deal for Keene.