Production Starts on CBS' 'Winchester'

CBS Films announced today that principal photography on the supernatural thriller Winchester has commenced in Melbourne, Australia where the film will shoot before moving on to the Winchester Mystery House in San Jose, CA.  Starring Academy Award®-winner Helen Mirren (The Queen, Eye in the Sky) and Jason Clarke (Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, Zero Dark Thirty), the film is being directed by Michael Spierig and Peter Spierig (Predestination) based on their screenplay.
 
Blacklab Entertainment’s Tim McGahan and Imagination Design Works’ Brett Tomberlin are producing Winchester. The film is being financed by Eclipse Pictures and Blacklab Entertainment and has secured Screen Australia major production investment, with assistance from Film Victoria (Production Incentive Attraction Fund) and Screen Queensland (Production Investment). CBS will distribute in the U.S., and Eclipse is handling international sales with Eclipse’s Benedict Carver and Daniel Diamond acting as executive producers.
 
The film follows the story of firearm heiress Sarah Winchester (Helen Mirren), who was convinced that she was haunted by the souls killed at the hands of the Winchester repeating rifle. After the sudden deaths of her husband and child, she threw herself into the 24-hours 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 (Jason Clarke) is dispatched to the estate to evaluate her state of mind, he discovers that her obsession may not be so insane after all. Winchester will take audiences inside the labyrinth like house that is believed to be one of the most haunted places in the world. In addition to Mirren and Clarke, Sarah Snook (The Dressmaker, The Glass Castle) and Angus Sampson (Insidious, TV’s Fargo) have joined the cast.
 
Tobin Ambrust, Andy Trapani, Toni Lianos, Brian Gilbert, Marc Shipper and Simon Oakes are also executive producing.