MARY, QUEEN OF GHOSTS

Imagine for a moment that James Cameron’s “Titanic” leaned into horror, that Leonardo DiCaprio spent the whole movie fearing for his life rather than just at the end, that Kate Winslet’s locket were a cursed talisman. That’s the premise of White Horse Pictures’ newest project in development. The plot isn’t exactly set in stone yet, but the studio has a clear idea of what they want from their creative team.

The film, “Queen Mary” takes place on deck on a haunted cruiser launched in 1934 by Harland and Wolff, the same company that engineered the infamous Titanic. It may come as a surprise, but they’ve actually remained in business to this day, despite their literally historic failure. The film has been in the works for years, but has finally set sail, navigated by director Gary Shore, the man behind “Dracula: Untold” and “Holidays.” Shore is relatively new to movies, having been a commercial director for Adidas and Gatorade, but his work so far has been well received, particularly the cinematography employed.

The actual Queen Mary is a popular tourist location visited by two million a year, and is renowned for its creepiness, similar to the San Jose Winchester Mystery House, the inspiration for last year’s horror “Winchester” from Helen Mirren. Producer Brett Tomberlin was on the project, and he’ll also be on board, helped out by Nigel Sinclair, Mali Elfman, Thorsten Schumacher, Lars Sylvest, and Nicholas Ferrall. The executive producer is Tobin Armbrust, with Andy Trapani, Brian Gilbert and Steve Sheldon. There’s no explanation on why there are so many producers attached, but somehow the team managed to actually secure the ship as a filming location, thought it will be impractical to do 100% of the filming there.