King Coins "The Tourist" at Col

In his first big deal since staking his GK Films to a three-year multi-pic output deal with Sony Pictures Worldwide Acquisitions Group, Graham King has committed to finance and produce “The Tourist,” the Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck-directed thriller that will star Angelina Jolie and Sam Worthington.

Production begins February, and Sony Pictures Entertainment will release in 2011.  

King emerged with a film that had three other studios chasing it.

King’s GK Films will produce with Spyglass, which developed the remake of the 2005 French thriller “Anthony Zimmer.”

King will produce the picture with Tim Headington, Gary Barber, Roger Birnbaum and Jonathan Glickman. The pic was originally scripted by Julian Fellowes, with rewrites by Christopher McQuarrie and Jeffrey Nachmanoff.

Deal gives Sony Pictures Entertainment two films in a row with Jolie, who most recently completed “Salt,” the Phillip Noyce-directed thriller.

The deal ends a long twisting road for a picture that, like “Salt,” was once built around Tom Cruise but now has the Oscar-winning Jolie as its catalyst. Cruise once planned to star with Charlize Theron for director Bharat Nalluri, a scheme that went south when Cruise instead committed to team with Cameron Diaz on the James Mangold-directed “Knight & Day” for Fox. 

Jolie’s interest kick-started the project recently, and she sparked to working with von Donnersmarck, whose last film, the 2006 “The Lives of Others,” won the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film. 

GK Films COO Bahman Naraghi made the deal with Spyglass.

King most recently produced the Martin Campbell-directed “Edge of Darkness,” the Mel Gibson-starrer that Warner Bros. releases January 29, 2009. With Johnny Depp’s Infinitum Nihil, King produced “The Rum Diary” with Depp starring, and wrapped the William Monahan-directed “London Boulevard” with Colin Farrell and Keira Knightley. King also produced with Martin Scorsese, Headington and Sarah Fergun “The Young Victoria,” which Bob Berney’s Apparition opens in December, with Emily Blunt starring.

The Sony Pictures Worldwide Acquisitions Group continues to add solid pictures to the Columbia Pictures release schedule. SPWAG, which got in on the ground floor of the sleeper hit "District 9," pacted with CBS Films for the George Tillman-directed "Faster," which has Dwayne Johnson and Billy Bob Thornton starring. The pic also begins production early next year and will be ready for 2011.