Movies: Angelina Jolie To Direct Elephant Poaching Tale ‘Africa’ For Skydance
Originally posted on Deadline
Angelina Jolie has found her next movie to direct. The actress and now busy helmer has signed on to for Africa, an epic tale for David Ellison’s Skydance Productions. Written by Oscar winner Eric Roth, the pic is based on paleo-archaeologist Richard Leakey’s late-’80s battle with ivory poachers in Kenya that threatened the existence of the African elephant population and the soul of Africa.
Ellison, Jolie, Dana Goldberg and Jon Peters will produce. The pic also reteams cinematographer Roger Deakins and Jolie after the pair did the Louis Zamperini biopic Unbroken, which Universal releases on Christmas Day. The plan is to ramp up production on Africa soon after Jolie wraps her current gig, directing her script By The Sea for Universal in which she stars opposite husband Brad Pitt.
Her first feature helming effort, 2011’s In The Land Of Blood And Honey, served as her calling card and garnered a Golden Globe nom and the PGA’s Stanley Kramer Award, which honors filmmakers who illuminate social issues. That jibes with the idea behind Africa, as both Jolie and Ellison are involved in humanitarian causes and Jolie won the Movie Academy’s Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award last year.
Producer David Ellison – whose company Skydance co-produced films including True Grit and Jack Reacher – called Leakey “inspirational,” adding, “Africa is a story that deserves to be told”.Jolie’s next movie, Unbroken, starring British actor Jack O’Connell is due in cinemas later this year.She is currently directing and starring opposite her husband Brad Pitt in the film By The Sea, based on her own screenplay.
