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WILL SMITH TO REMAKE FRENCH BLOCKBUSTER: Actor's Overbrook acquires rights to comedy that broke box office records in France.
*Will Smith has gotten his hands on some hot property from France. The actor's Overbrook Entertainment teamed with Warner Bros. to acquire rights to remake "Bienvenue chez les Ch'tis," a comedy that shattered box office records in France earlier this year.
According to Variety, the original film is a "hicks-in-the-sticks tale about a post office manager who has a nice outpost in the South of France but ends up banished to a rainy town in northern France, where he finds the local patois unintelligible." The Dany Boon-directed film grossed more than $190 million in France alone.
Smith's American version will be developed by Warner Bros. under the title "Welcome to the Sticks" and co-produced with his Overbrook partner James Lassiter and Ken Stovitz.
"There are only 65 million people who live in France, and $191 million seemed to defy all logic. But when we saw the film, it's obvious why it works," Stovitz said. "We will probably place the character in a global corporation, and he literally gets sent to the sticks, but finds that rather than a backward place, it provides all that was missing in his life."
Meanwhile, other films in the pipeline at Overbrook include the July 2 opener "Hancock," the Jada Pinkett Smith-directed "The Human Contract," the Sept. 19 opener "Lakeview Terrace," Oct. 17 opener "The Secret Life of Bees" and the Gabriele Muccino-directed "Seven Pounds," which stars Smith and opens Dec. 12.
In other Will Smith news, the rapper-turned-actor is reportedly paying $889,000 to lease Indian Hills High School near his home in Calabasas, Calif. after failing to find a suitable learning situation for his two youngest kids Jaden, 9, and Willow, 7.
According to the San Francisco Chronicle's SF Gate Web site, a rep for Smith says of the school, renamed the New Village Academy of Calabasas: "Will is leasing the campus for three years, plus he'll cover all costs such as utilities. The academy will be run privately, and will include pre-kindergarten through grade six."
The actor and his wife Jada Pinkett Smith have, until now, been home schooling their children.
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