Paramount and Cruise/Wagner have paid a low six-figure sum against a mid-six-figure sum for Bo Zenga’s pitch “Timejumpers” as a possible starring vehicle for Tom Cruise and Emilio Estevez.
Cruise/Wagner and Estevez’s Disney-based Avatar films are attached to produce. Zenga, who is writing the picture, also will be co-producer on the project.
“Timejumpers” is a sci-fi action thriller about an elite group of federal agents who travel back in time to record major crimes and then bring the tapes back to the present for use as evidence in court. But there’s one catch: timejumpers can only go back as far as two weeks, and stay a maximum of 29 minutes.
The story follows two time-jumping brothers and the jeopardy they face when they uncover corruption in the program.
Zenga originally brought the pitch to producer Robert Kosberg, who exec produced the time-travel pic “12 Monkeys” and who is now developing Zenga’s “Money to Burn” at Constantin Films. Kosberg suggested taking “Timejumpers” to Avatar as a possible vehicle for the two actors.
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Avatar senior VP of production Jonathan Brandstein then brought it to Paramount and Cruise/Wagner, which picked up the pitch in a preemptive bid late last week.
“It was the idea that we went after. I thought it was something that we should jump on right away,” said Brandstein.
Cruise and Estevez have reportedly been looking for a project to star in together for several years. Estevez had a small part in Par’s “Mission: Impossible,” which Cruise starred in and produced.
Zenga is also writing and will co-produce “As Time Goes By” for Warner Bros. and Outlaw Prods., and producing – but not writing – “Murder Hustle” for Jersey Films at Universal.
He was repped in the deal by Ramses IsHak of WMA and attorney Mary Sullivan.
