When you talk about Dark Castle Entertainment, you are talking about a film company that gave us House on Haunted Hill and Ninja Assassin, as well as the company that backs the films of Jaume Collet-Serra (House of Wax, Orphan, Unknown).
So the company specializes in B-grade horror properties and cheap genre films.
Then why is Dark Castle becoming the new home for The Last Photograph, a film that has gained momentum with the news that Sean Penn and Christian Bale would headline the drama that will be directed by Niels Arden Oplev, director of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.
Previously set up at Warner Bros., the film originated with an idea by Zack Snyder.
The premise of the Afghanistan-set drama, with shades of The Searchers and Taken, sees Bale play a war correspondent who witnesses and is the only survivor of an attack on a group of Americans. Penn’s character would be that of a retired ex-special ops soldier who comes to the scene determined to free a family member who has been kidnapped. The journalist agrees to help identify the kidnappers and travel the rough terrain to find them, in exchange for the story. The road brings them in confrontation with tribal regions of Afghanistan, and none of the diplomats will help.
The idea is that the picture will go into production sometime in 2012 once Bale finishes with The Dark Knight Rises. Penn, meanwhile, had been courted by Warner Bros. to be in its new Superman pic Man of Steel (Lex Luthor, maybe?) and the Ruben Fleischer-directed Gangster Squad.
Even with Penn’s interest, Warner Bros. wasn’t going to alter its plan to not fund The Last Photograph. The studio will however distribute the Dark Castle release.
