CANNES — New York-based Regal Entertainment, Vendian Entertainment CEO Michael Bassick, an executive producer aon Mel Gibson’s “Hacksaw Ridge” and Oliver Stone’s “Snowden,” and Michael Laundon, producer of Marcus Thompson’s “Shore Leave,” have joined efforts to co-produce “Tell Me Why I Don’t Like Mondays,” directed by editor-helmer Thompson (“A Place to Stay,” “Malevolence”), who also co-penned the screenplay alongside John Speer.
Film fund Regal Entertainment is backed by American Israeli financier Adi Cohen and Catalan producer Jordi Rediu, whose credits include Jo Sol’s “Fake Orgasm,” Henning Carlsen’s “Memories of My Melancholy Whores.”
Taking its title from the Boomtown Rats’ song, “Mondays” is inspired by the first school shooting in California in 1979. Story explores the life and intimate thoughts of a teenager living in a Southern California suburb as reflected in her diaries. Motherless and pretty, Laura spends her time in consuming bourbon and drugs and skipping classes.
“The contrast between the real world of Laura’s tiny bedroom and the breath-taking vastness of the Nevada desert accentuate the sense of adventure and freedom that the mixed-up and trapped teenager so desperately seeks in her solitude,” Thompson said in a statement, adding: “Long lenses, trailing dust, and solitary travelers in vast landscapes is what American road movie cinema is all about, and ‘Mondays’ is cinematic Americana from beginning to end.”
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Nikolas Labrinakos (“After the World Ended”) will be responsible for the movie’s soundtrack, Roger Eaton will act as d.p. Casting is still to be announced; shooting is scheduled to begin at the end of 2017.
