Relativity Media Gets Bitten by David R. Ellis’ 3D Shark Thriller

In their third pick-up since acquiring Overture Films this past summer, Relativity Media have baited the domestic rights to David R. Eliis’ Untitled 3D Shark Thriller which formerly went by the IMAX-like, National Geographic production title of Shark Night 3D. The film will swim into theaters sometime in 2011.

While the production is an appropriate move for most of the players involved – Ellis previously helmed Snakes on a Plane and The Final Destination, and producers Chris Biggs and Mike Fleiss’ NextFilms brought us the Hostel films – a thriller/horror and for this production were joined by an unlikely indie producer in Lynette Howell and her Silverwood Films, Her banner has given us horror films before with junkie teachers of America in Half Nelson and the heart-ripping relationship break-up film Blue Valentine.

Gist: Written by first-time scribes Jesse Studenberg and Will Hayes, this stars the inexpensive Sara Paxton, Dustin Milligan, Katharine McPhee, Chris Carmack, Alyssa Diaz, Joel David Moore, Donal Logue, Sinqua Walls and Chris Zylka, the story revolves around seven men and women who spend a weekend at a lake house in Louisiana’s Gulf area. When their trip quickly becomes a nightmare of hellish shark attacks, unheard of in freshwater lakes, they soon discover that the sharks are part of a sick, greedy plan on the part of several locals.

Worth Noting: Walt Conti, who created the animatronic sharks for this thriller, has an impressive deadly creature building resume: Anaconda’s snake, Deep Blue Sea’s sharks, and the Free Willy whales.

Do We Care?: Though we could care less about Ellis’ body of work, since that this might be closer to the DNA of Renny Harlin’s Deep Blue Sea than the more slapsticky Piranha 3D, we feel that this might actually have some guilty pleasure upside going for it. Let’s just hope it’s better than it’s 3D shark predecessor: Jaws 3D.