Brad Pitt is in talks to star as real-life fossil hunter turned protector of elephants Richard Leakey in the sweeping epic Africa for his wife Angelina Jolie, reports The Wrap.
Details of Jolie’s fourth film behind the cameras were first revealed in September, before the huge box office success of her recent second world war drama Unbroken. While the story of US prisoner of war Louis Zamperini failed to go on the predicted Oscars run, it has so far taken $140 million (Dh514 million) worldwide for studio Universal.
Africa, which will see Jolie reuniting with iconic British cinematographer Roger Deakins, is based on a screenplay by the Oscar-winning writer of Forrest Gump, Eric Roth. It centres on Kenya-born Leakey, author of the 2001 book Wildlife Wars: My Fight to Save Africa’s Natural Treasures.
The palaeoanthropologist was appointed to take on hunters amid international outcry over the killing of elephants and other wildlife in 1989. He oversaw a highly successful, unashamedly aggressive approach to conservation that involved setting up armed Kenya Wildlife Service units authorised to shoot poachers on sight.
“I’ve felt a deep connection to Africa and its culture for much of my life,” said Jolie in September. “And was taken with Eric’s beautiful script about a man drawn into the violent conflict with elephant poachers who emerged with a deeper understanding of man’s footprint and a profound sense of responsibility for the world around him.”
Pitt and Jolie also star together as a struggling married couple in the latter’s third film, intimate romantic drama By the Sea, which was shot in Malta from August to November last year. Conservationist Leakey warns of danger to great apes.
