The story of Sarah Winchester and her purportedly haunted mansion has been a part of American horror lore for over a century, and now it’s coming to the big screen. CBS Films attained the rights to the film Winchester from Bullitt Entertainment and Diamond Pictures, and production is expected to begin in March of next year.
The film is the story of the aforementioned Sarah Winchester, the heiress to Winchester firearms, who believed she was haunted by the ghosts of all those killed by the weapons sold by her family’s company. In fact, she was so scared that she erected a mansion to stave off the ghosts, and the mansion still stands today as a famous haunted tourist attraction. The official synopsis for the film says that, “After the sudden deaths of her husband and child, she threw herself into the 24-hour a day, seven days a week construction of an enormous mansion designed to keep the evil spirits at bay. But when skeptical San Francisco psychiatrist Eric Price is dispatched to the estate to evaluate her state of mind, he discovers that her obsession may not be so insane after all.”
Oscar-winner Helen Mirren takes on the lead role, while the Spierig brothers (Daybreakers, Predestination) direct from a script they wrote with Tom Vaughan. The brothers have a couple of little-known but compelling horror flicks under their belt, and CBS Films has high hopes for their work on Winchester. Scott Shooman, the company’s EVP of Acquisitions and Co-Productions, believes that fans will be captivated by their adaptation of this classic tale.
“We were immediately obsessed with the Spierig brothers’ intelligent and twisted take on a great American legend,” he says, “and could not be more excited to be working with the Spierig brothers and Dame Helen Mirren to bring this film to audiences.”
