Megan Ellison to finance 'Foxcatcher'

EllisonMegan Ellison has come on to finance Bennett Miller's "Foxcatcher" through her Annapurna Pictures banner. Variety recently revealed that Steve Carell will star in the project, which was previously set up at MRC, though the company is no longer involved. Ellison will produce with Anthony Bregman, Jon Kilik and Miller, while Tom Heller and Michael Coleman will exec produce. Carell will play John du Pont, the paranoid schizophrenic heir to the du Pont chemical fortune who murdered Olympic wrestler David Schultz in broad daylight in 1996. E. Max Frye and Dan Futterman ("Capote") wrote the film, which Miller has been developing since 2007. There is no production start date yet, though "Foxcatcher" is expected to be Miller's next picture. Annapurna recently paid more than $20 million to acquire rights to the "Terminator" franchise. Ellison plans to put the first of two pictures in production before the end of 2012, though no screenwriter has been hired and the search has resumed for a director now that Justin Lin has dropped out in order to direct Universal's sequel to "Fast Five." Annapurna is also financing Kathryn Bigelow and Mark Boal's untitled Navy SEAL pic about the hunt for Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden. Sony will distribute the Ellison-produced film on Oct. 12, 2012. Additionally, Ellison financed Paul Thomas Anderson's next film, which will be released by The Weinstein Company. TWC is also distributing John Hillcoat's Annapurna-financed bootlegging drama "The Wettest County in the World," which stars Shia LaBeouf, Tom Hardy and Jessica Chastain. Contact Jeff Sneider at jeff.sneider@variety.com

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