09/12/2021 - The young Belgian filmmaker has just signed with TriStar Pictures to helm a feature-length US remake of his successful short film

The rights to You’re Dead Helene by young Belgian filmmaker Michiel Blanchart have just been acquired by US company TriStar Pictures, a subsidiary of Columbia and Sony, no less, which will thus be producing this horror rom-com, a hybrid genre film adapted from Blanchart’s successful short You’re Dead Hélène, which was festooned with awards at a number of festivals. Having won the Sofilm genre residency, the movie picked up the Grand Prix at the Gérardmer Fantasy Film Festival, the Silver Méliès at the Sitges Film Festival, the Short Fuse Award at the Austin Fantastic Fest, four gongs at the Brussels International Fantastic Film Festival and the Grand Prize at Rhode Island, which therefore makes the film eligible to take part in the Oscars race.

Blanchart therefore joins a very exclusive club of Belgian directors who have been hired to helm a remake of their own film in the United States, following in the footsteps of Erik Van Looy, who directed the remake of his Flemish box-office smash Loft [+see also:
trailer
film profile] in 2015, as well as Olivier Masset-Depasse, who is currently working on Mothers’ Instinct, starring Jessica Chastain and Anne Hathaway, a remake of his original Mothers’ Instinct [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Olivier Masset-Depasse
film profile], which scooped eight Magritte Awards. What’s unusual in this case is that it will be a short film adapted into a feature.

You’re Dead Hélène follows Maxime, a young man in search of stability and literally being haunted by the ghost of his girlfriend Hélène, who died a short while before. Wishing to put a stop to this frankly unbearable situation, Maxime finally bites the bullet and decides to break up with her. But Hélène does not seem ready to accept this decision.

The US remake, You’re Dead Helene, will be his second fiction feature, and is set to be produced by Sam Raimi, Rob Tapert (Ghost House Pictures, USA), and his producers Michaël Goldberg (for Belgium’s Daylight Films) and Boris Van Gils (for France’s Formosa Productions).

Michiel Blanchart is therefore living the American Dream, having been a fan of the Evil Dead, Darkman and Spiderman director since his teens. As mentioned above, You’re Dead Helene will be his second feature because, apparently, before next summer, he is due to shoot his feature debut, La Nuit se traine, a nighttime-set thriller that unfolds in a dark and mysterious Brussels, again with Daylight Films and Formosa Productions handling production duties.

(Translated from French)