KOSAR TAKES NEW BELL WITCH

Variety reports that Paramount has hired Scott Kosar, whose credits include the TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE and AMITYVILLE HORROR remakes as well as THE MACHINIST, to be the new writer on its BELL WITCH movie project.

The film is being produced by Reese Witherspoon and Jennifer Simpson's Type A Films, and Witherspoon will star as a young woman obsessed with paranormal phenomena that she believes the titular phantom is targeting her baby. (The real-life Bell Witch attacks on a 19th-century Tennessee family were the subject of this year's AN AMERICAN HAUNTING and a pair of recent independently made features.)

Kosar will rewrite a script by Don Winston originally titled OUR FAMILY TROUBLES; a director has yet to be signed for the film.