‘The Mountain Between Us’ Director to Helm Adaptation of Comic ‘Infidel’ for TriStar (EXCLUSIVE)

By Justin Kroll

LOS ANGELES (Variety.com) – Hany Abu-Assad, who most recently directed Fox’s “The Mountain Between Us,” has come on to direct the adaptation of the popular comic book “Infidel” for TriStar Pictures.

TriStar landed the rights to the comic in May in a competitive auction that saw several studios pursuing before TriStar won the bidding war. Academy Award-winner Michael Sugar and Ashley Zalta of Sugar 23 are attached to produce the project along with Anonymous Content.

Juliet Snowden and Stiles White are penning the script.

Written by Pornsak Pichetshote and illustrated by Aaron Campbell and released in March by Image Comics, “Infidel” is a haunted house story for the 21st century, following an American Muslim woman and her multi-racial neighbors who find themselves living in a building haunted by strange creatures that seemingly feed on xenophobia.

Nicole Brown and Nick Krishnamurthy will oversee the project for .

Abu-Assad’s star has been on the rise since directing his critically acclaimed pic “Paradise Now,” which was nominated for a foreign language film Oscar. “Omar,” which also won the Jury Prize in Un Certain Regard at the 2013 Cannes Film Festival, was also Oscar-nommed.

His work on that film led him to landing the Fox’s “The Mountains Between Us” starring Idris Elba and Kate Winslet.

He is repped by CAA and attorney Craig Emmanuel of Paul Hastings. Snowden and White are repped by ICM Partners and Kaplan/Perrone.