Film Adaptation of Agatha Christie's Crooked House: Production, Distribution Update

The last we heard from the studio developing a film adaptation of Agatha Christie's Crooked House was May 2011, when some of the names in the all-star cast was announced.

We were beginning to think the project had possibly been abandoned … but now we're learning (via The Hollywood Reporter) that it hasn't, and that Sony has picked up the distribution rights for the US and Canada.

Production still hasn't begun, though it is expected to start this fall in London. (Of course, in May 2011 production was supposed to start in Summer 2011.) We have no updated information on the cast.

The storyline follows three generations of Leonides, one big Anglo-Greek family, are living happily in a sprawling, ramshackle mansion. That is until the head of the household, Aristide, is murdered with a fatal barbiturate injection. Suspicion naturally falls on the old man's young widow, fifty years his junior. But the murderer has not reckoned with the tenacity of Charles Hayward, fiancé of Sophia, the late millionaire's granddaughter, who must find the killer before he can marry her.

Neil LaBute will direct the adapted screenplay co-written with Julian Fellowes (Gosford Park) and Tim Rose Price.