Adam Stein and Zach Lipovsky, the filmmaking duo behind the cult indie sci-fi hit Freaks, have signed on to direct Deadpoint, a rock climbing thriller for Spyglass Media Group.
Chris Bender and Jake Weiner of Good Fear, the production and management concern that last year had Mulan and My Spy as pandemic hits, are producing the thriller, marking a rare foray into original fare for Spyglass, which has been focused on its vast library and rebooting titles such as Scream and Hellraiser.
The script by Paul Haapaniemi follows a young woman who sets out to complete the treacherous mountain climb that claimed her father’s life. Mid-journey, she stumbles upon a murder and becomes the target of a ruthless band of criminals that want to eliminate the only witness to their crime. Alone in the unforgiving wilderness, and clinging to a sheer rock wall, her only escape is…up.
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Peter Oillataguerre, Spyglass’ president of production, will oversee the project on behalf of the company.
Haapaniemi is a writer, actor, and musician whose career in the film industry began after winning the Lawrence Kasdan Award and Endowment for Screenwriting. He wrote the short Nowhere Band as well as episodes of Jane by Design for Freeform when the channel was called ABC Family. Acting-wise, he last appeared opposite Neal McDonough in sci-fi actionthriller Monsters of Man. The scribe is repped by Good Fear and Goodman Genow.
Stein and Lipovsky’s Freaks premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2018 and sold in a bidding war to Well Go USA. The movie, which starred Emile Hirsch, Bruce Dern and Lexy Kolker, went on to play at over 50 film festivals around the world. The duo even developed a Freaks TV series at TNT with Kennedy/Marshall producing.
Since then, Lipovsky & Stein have written feature projects for Universal and Disney+ and directed episodes for Apple. They directed the live-action Kim Possible movie for Disney Channel and were nominated for an Emmy for directing Disney’s giant robot show Mech-X4.
The duo, who originally met as contestants on Steven Spielberg’s filmmaking competition show On The Lot, are repped by Verve, Ground Control, and Lichter Grossman.
