Universal ventues into subtitle territory

I see a new trend with the people over at Universal. Find some non-actors and take a painful memory from the news headlines and package it with popcorn. Variety reports that Universal Pictures and Imagine Entertainment are going the U93 route and have picked Oliver Hirschbiegel to direct and Braulio Mantovani to write the drama.

The School is based on the C.J. Chivers article in Esquire's June issue about the siege of a Russian elementary school by heavily armed Chechen rebels. Chivers, the Moscow correspondent for the New York Times, covered the ordeal as it unfolded over three days in 2004, ending with the deaths of about 300 of the 1,100 hostages; 31 terrorists also were killed. Chivers returned to the town of Beslan 18 months later to interview the survivors, whose viewpoints give The School an emotional thrust and its movie potential.

Hirschbiegel has finished working on the Kidman/Craig starrer The Invasion and was internationally reknowned for his banker story Downfall. The writer (who also wrote City of God) and director would like to shoot the film in Russian language and populate it with Russian actors and non-pros to make it more believable.