Ugly

CANNES -- Things are getting "Ugly" at Film & Music Entertainment.

Dutch director Martin Koolhoven's "The Ugly" is the first in a pair of movies to emerge through deals brokered for the U.K.-based finance and production house via its pact with William Morris Endeavor Entertainment.

The uberagency has brokered a deal uniting Mike Downey and Sam Taylor's F&ME and Els Vandevorst's Amsterdam-based Isabella Films for a brace of films to be made during the next two years.

"Ugly," Koolhoven's lighthearted take on the Spaghetti Western genre co-written by the director and Robert Fusco, begins shooting in the spring. The script revolves around a gang of misfit cowboys, led by brothers Red and Bobby, who accidentally steal a side-show freak -- the "ugly" of the title -- and begin showing her around the Wild West for money.

Vandevorst, Downey and Taylor are setting up the project as a Netherlands-U.K.-Spain co-production with a budget of about $6 million.

Fusco is repped by WME; the project was brought to F&ME and Isabella by WME's Adam Novak.

The deal was brokered by WME's Ramses Ishak, Sara Bottfeld and Downey.