EXCLUSIVE: "The Secret in Their Eyes" found a surprisingly large audience in the United States before, and largely after, it won the foreign-language Oscar. Juan Jose Campanella's dramatic thriller garnered more than $6 million in domestic box office and a wide base of critical support.

Now it could really broaden its audience.

Warner Bros. is in final negotiations to acquire remake rights to the film and develop an English-language version. The production would bring on Hollywood veteran Billy Ray to write and direct the picture. (Ray directed "Shattered Glass" and "Breach" and wrote "Flightplan" and the upcoming "24" movie.) Campanella, who wrote, directed, produced and edited the original, is also expected to be involved in the new version as a producer, after John Ufland, who represents Campanella, brought the film to the studio.

The Argentine film, "El Secreto De Sus Ojos" in its native Spanish, is a crime thriller told in flashback about a policeman confounded by the brutal murder of a young woman. There's a strong narrative backbone to the story, which should help with a more commercially minded remake. But with much of the action taking place in 1974 against the backdrop of the country's military junta, it could also pose some translation challenges. (Filmmakers have yet to decide whether to find American parallels to, or de-emphasize the salient aspects of, the movie's political themes.)

Foreign-language remakes have had a mini-renaissance in Hollywood, particularly where Sweden is concerned, as "Let Me In," "The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo" and "Snabba Cash" all have gotten or are getting American redos.

A number of foreign-language Oscar nominees over the years also have been given the remake treatment ("Three Men & a Cradle" and "Scent of a Woman" among them). But among the winners, recent attempts, such as "The Lives of Others," have stalled. Two Federico Fellini-directed winners either inspired a new film ("8 1/2" became "Nine") or gave birth to a more direct remake (Bob Fosse's "Sweet Charity" was based on Fellini's screenplay for "The Nights of Cabiria").  But "Cabiria" won the Oscar back in...1957. It might be time for a new secret.

--Steven Zeitchik

twitter.com/ZeitchikLAT

Photo: "The Secret in their Eyes." Credit: Sony Pictures Classics

As The Times’ Kenneth Turan so ably points out in his review of the Cannes Film Festival-anointed gangster-drama “A Prophet” (“Un Prophète”), the movie was already a “phenomenon” even before it arrived in the U.S. last week.

One of five nominees currently in the running for a best foreign language film Oscar, the baroque and enthralling French prison movie -- which follows a 19-year-old French Arab sentenced to six years of hard time in a Parisian prison, where he rises through the ranks of power in the Corsican mafia -- picked up a British BAFTA award and a Golden Globe nomination, while a “Sight & Sound” poll of 60 critics around the world named “A Prophet” 2009’s best film.

Art house audiences have apparently taken notice of that groundswell of international critic love. In limited release, booked in only nine theaters across North America, the movie grossed a robust $170,000 over its opening weekend.

Central to that kind of box-office mojo here and around the world has been “A Prophet’s” young star, newcomer Tahar Rahim. The 28-year-old Frenchman of Algerian descent won two Cesars (the French equivalent to the Oscars) for best actor and most promising actor over the weekend (the film also won for best picture and best director).

And in review after glowing review, Rahim has been compared to no less than a young Al Pacino in the first installment of Francis Ford Coppola’s “Godfather” trilogy. In their respective roles, both leading men burst onto the screen exuding a kind of physical meekness that belies the force of character their characters come to embody as mob dons. Never mind that Rahim’s highest-profile project to date had been a role in “La Commune,” a French miniseries with a beyond negligible Q-rating in the States -- his “Prophet” role is the kind of breakthrough star turn that’s sure to be thrown even more into dramatic focus come Oscar weekend.

For his part, the actor rejects the comparison out of hand, exclaiming (in heavily accented Franglais in a recent interview with 24 Frames): “It’s too much. People are using comparisons that are not possible. This guy has changed so much in cinema and I’ve just made one movie. He’s a genius.”

But according to “A Prophet's” writer-director, the French crime genre maestro Jacques Audiard (“The Beat That My Heart Skipped,” “Read My Lips”),  who interviewed 40 actors before giving Rahim the role and, moreover, who is credited with handing such French dramatic stalwarts as Vincent Cassel  breakthrough parts -- Rahim’s ambiguous ethnicity and pronounced youthfulness gave him a leg up on the competition.

“There’s a very juvenile quality to him,” said Audiard (who, interestingly enough, calls the movie his "anti-'Scarface' "). “And he’s not physically very Arabic. He’s not an exact Arabic type. He could be Spanish. He’s a very young actor and he had to learn a lot for a very complicated part that was hard to make realistic.” (You can read more about Audiard's process making "A Prophet" in this recent Sunday Calendar story.)

Then, consider who’s got Rahim’s back in Hollywood. On the heels of “A Prophet’s” grand jury prize win at Cannes last May, he signed with Creative Artists Agency’s international movie star specialist Hylda Queally. The Irish-born industry heavyweight is currently responsible for stewarding the careers of such global movie icons as Kate Winslet, Marion Cotillard and Cate Blanchett, among others.

For his next project, “The Eagle of the Ninth," directed by “The Last King of Scotland” helmer Kevin Macdonald, Rahim changed gears to appear opposite Channing Tatum and Jamie Bell. “I’m the baddie,” Rahim said between drags of on a Camel Light, seated in the Beverly Hills back yard of the French consul general. “He’s the prince of an ancient Gallic tribe. I’m talking in ancient Gallic -- it was hard.”

And last week, the actor signed on to appear in "Bitch," the romantic-drama from one of China's most controversial directors, Lou Ye. The film reportedly follows a Frenchman (Rahim) whose Chinese lover follows him to Paris, leading to "an intense love addiction." Shooting is set to begin this month with an eye toward landing a spot in the Cannes 2011 line-up.

Rahim described his experience on “A Prophet” as having given him the chance to grow up, “emotionally, professionally, in every way.” And Rahim said he would have no compunction about reprising his role as Malik El Djebena in the all but inevitable sequel.

“I would like to work again with Jacques,” Rahim said, cracking into a huge smile at the thought. “If it’s another time with Malik’s character, that would be great. Me too -- I would like to know what happens to him!”

-- Chris Lee

Photo: Tahar Rahim in "A Prophet." Credit: Image.net

The foreign-language Oscar committee has taken more lumps than Massachusetts Democrats, so it's a relief of sorts to find that the category’s shortlist has few eyebrow-raisers this year.

Two years ago, cineastes and Academy completists will remember, the committee (which has to vouch that it has seen every movie before submitting its shortlist of nine) overlooked the Cannes and critical darling "4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days." That caused feather-ruffling that wouldn’t be out of place at an avian sanctuary. So last year the committee rejiggered its rules so that three of the nine shortlisted movies were chosen by the executive committee, in a bid to correct any oversights the larger committee may have made. Nice idea, but it didn’t work, as another Cannes and critical darling, the Italian-language mobster movie “Gommorah,” did not make the cut.

This year, there are no obvious snubs: Both foreign films that had been on most pundits' lists, Michael Haneke’s Palme d’Or winner “The White Ribbon,” out of Germany, and France’s immigrant-gangster film, “A Prophet,” are on the shortlist. The Romanians get the cold shoulder again as the excellent Cold War morality play "Police, Adjective" misses the list, though given the only limited buzz the film has been generating, that's more of a modest oversight. (You can read the full list here.)

But it should be noted that there weren’t nearly as many foreign-language favorites this year – in fact, “Prophet” and “White Ribbon” were pretty much all anyone was talking about, so it would have been pretty hard to see a major snub (though if anyone could manage that trick, the foreign-language committee could).

Maybe more interesting is the movies that did make it, and, more specifically, the territories from which they come.

We’ve been hearing for a while now from global cinema types that film culture has reached into unknown corners, and this year’s shortlist may offer some of the best proof of that. Neither Bulgaria (“The World Is Big and Salvation Lurks Around the Corner”), Australia (“Samson & Delilah”) nor Peru (“The Milk of Sorry”) has ever had a film nominated for a foreign-language Oscar. Though the Old World hasn’t exactly gone away: The two frontrunners, France and Germany, have collectively been nominated a total of 49 times.

-- Steven Zeitchik

Photo. "The White Ribbon." Credit: Films du Losange/Sony Pictures