Studios Want To Open The Gift

Carl Erik Rinsch’s short sparks interest

Studios Want To Open The Gift

by James White |
Published on

It’s been a good news/bad news situation for ads director Carl Erik Rinsch in the last few years. In the good news column, he nabbed a job with RSA, Ridley Scott’s commercial production house. Bad news? He was lined up to direct the Alien prequel before Scott decided to do it himself. Now it seems like he’s back with good tidings – as the short he made instead{ =nofollow}, The Gift, has launched a scramble by several studios to turn it into a film.

The latest in a wave of ads and shorts that have grabbed Hollywood’s attention, Rinsch’s work for Phillips’ short film experiment – with the rule that all the directors who took part had to use the same line of dialogue – birthed a sci-fi tale of an ill-fated present, a robot on a mission and some amazing effects work.

And now the likes of Warners and Fox (the latter likely a front-runner given its association with Ridley Scott) are angling to buy up the rights to make a movie from the short.

Rinsch, meanwhile, is still attached to several projects, including 47 Ronin with Keanu Reeves as a samurai and the latest take on Creature From The Black Lagoon.

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