Academy Award® nominees Annette Bening (The Kids Are All Right, American Beauty) and Michelle Pfeiffer (Murder on the Orient Express) have signed on to star in director Gideon Raff’s (“Homeland”, “Tyrant”, “Dig”, and the upcoming The Red Sea Diving Resort and “The Spy”) thriller Turn of Mind. Adapted by Pulitzer Prize winner Doug Wright (I Am My Own Wife, Quills) and based on Alice LaPlante’s New York Times bestseller of the same name, the film will be produced by Gail Berman through The Jackal Group, Well Told Entertainment’s Rory Koslow, and Gideon Raff. Rocket Science will finance the film and launch international sales at Cannes next week. CAA Media Finance represents the U.S. domestic rights.
The psychological thriller is centered around a retired orthopedic doctor suffering from Alzheimer’s who is trying to figure out – in her moments of clarity – if she killed the person the police claim she had, or if she’s being deceived.
“Turn of Mind is an edge of your seat emotional thriller. A story of a warped friendship between two brilliant, sharp, forceful women who are bonded equally by their love for and jealousy of one other,” said Raff. “I am thrilled to have two legends filling these roles. What struck me most when reading LaPlante’s novel was how she rarely breaks from Jennifer’s (Bening) point of view. So, with her, we go through the visceral experience of a woman who relied her whole life on her gifted mind, only to find herself losing it when she needs it most.”
Bening recently starred in Disney’s Captain Marvel starring Brie Larson and Scott Z. Burns The Report, which made its debut in Sundance and was acquired by Amazon Studios. Her lauded roles include 20th Century Women, Running with Scissors and Bugsy. Bening received Academy Award® nominations for her roles in The Kids Are All Right, Being Julia, American Beauty, and The Grifters.
Pfeiffer most recently starred in such films as Marvel’s Ant-Man and the Wasp, Twentieth Century Fox’s Murder on the Orient Express and Paramount Pictures’ Mother!. She will next be seen opposite Angelina Jolie and Elle Fanning in Disney’s Maleficent: Mistress of Evil and was recently announced to star in French Exit alongside Lucas Hedges and Tracy Letts, which Rocket Science is selling. She received Academy Award® nominations for her roles in The Fabulous Baker Boys, Love Field andDangerous Liaisons.
Emmy award winning writer and director Gideon Raff is the creator of the Israeli series “Prisoners of War” (“Hatufim”), the highest-rated drama series in Israel which also won nine Israeli Emmy® Awards, including Best Directing for Raff and Best Drama Series. The American adaptation, “Homeland” starring Claire Danes and Mandy Patinkin is going into its 8th season, and Raff has received two Emmy Awards, a Golden Globe Award, a WGA Award, an Edgar Allen Poe Award® and a Peabody Award. Following, he created the FX drama series “Tyrant,” and co-created, wrote and directed “Dig” an event series starring Jason Isaacs and Anne Heche for USA.
Bening, Pfeiffer, and Raff are represented by CAA and Pfeiffer is also represented by Management 360.
Rocket Science’s Cannes slate includes: Ana Lily Amirpour’s female-led reboot of survival blockbuster Cliffhanger; Aaron Sorkin’s The Trial of the Chicago 7 starring Eddie Redmayne, Seth Rogen, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Sacha Baron Cohen and Jonathan Majors; Amirpour’s Blood Moon starring Kate Hudson; Gary Shore’s Queen Mary; and Jonathan Jakubowicz’s Resistance starring Jesse Eisenberg.
