Gold Circle Films is crying out for “Mercy.”
The company has preemptively picked up the spec script from writer Chris Sparling. Peter Safran will produce along with Paul Brooks, who will oversee for Gold Circle.
The script, which is described as having multiple twists, centers on a family intent on protecting their dying mother, and their individual financial interests, from the violent wrath of a religious sect.
Gold Circle is fast-tracking the project, eying a shoot in early 2010.
The company recently released “The Haunting in Connecticut” through Lionsgate and has “The 4th Kind,” starring Milla Jovovich, going out Nov. 6 with Universal.
Brooks also is exec producing “Life as We Know It,” starring Katherine Heigl, for Warners.
Sparling, repped by UTA and Kaplan/Perrone Entertainment, is best known for “Buried,” his first feature script. The thriller, now in production, centers on a civilian contractor (Ryan Reynolds) who is kidnapped and awakens to find he has been buried alive in the Iraqi desert inside a coffin with only a phone and a lighter at his disposal.
Safran, who also is producing “Buried,” partnered with Sparling once he got a peek at “Mercy.”
