'Heart' beating
Jolie, Par Vantage board Pearl bio
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Film is coming together quickly at Paramount Vantage, with Michael Winterbottom finalizing a deal to direct.
Brad Pitt's Plan B is producing, as is Winterbottom's producing partner, Andrew Eaton.
Shooting will begin within the next five weeks from a script by Laurence Coriat and Winterbottom.
The memoir details Pearl's search to locate her husband after he went missing in Pakistan. Also a journalist, Pearl was pregnant at the time. The drama ended as Pearl was murdered by his abductors, suspected to be Muslim terrorists tied to Al Qaeda.
"I am delighted that Angelina Jolie will be playing my role in the adaptation of my book," said Pearl. "I deeply admire her work and what she is committed to. I am also happy that Michael Winterbottom a versatile and talented director who genuinely loves truth will be working on this project as well."
Plan B set the book up originally at Warner Bros. in a seven-figure outright purchase. Project moved over to Paramount when Pitt relocated Plan B there.
Jolie's rep, Media Talent Group's Geyer Kosinski, was closing a deal to make the project her first live-action effort since giving birth. She inked last week to voice a character in DreamWorks Animation's "Kung Fu Panda."
Last seen alongside Pitt in "Mr. & Mrs. Smith," Jolie stars with Matt Damon in the Robert De Niro-directed "The Good Shepherd," which Universal releases on Dec. 22. She also stars in the Robert Zemeckis-directed "Beowulf," which Paramount will release in fall 2007.
"A Mighty Heart" is one of two films being planned about the Pearl murder.
Beacon Pictures has turned its adaptation of the Bernard-Henri Levy book "Who Killed Daniel Pearl?" into a fictionalized drama that will star Josh Lucas as a newsman who journeys into Pakistan to uncover the truth about a journalist's murder. Kip Williams will direct the film from a script by Peter Landesman; Beacon CEO Charlie Lyons produces. Production is expected to begin in fall.
Winterbottom set aside a project he expected to shoot this year, the Italian-set ghost story "Genova," when "A Mighty Heart" came together.
The film is familiar geopolitical turf for Winterbottom after his films "The Road to Guantanamo" and "In this World," both set and shot in the Middle East. "A Mighty Heart" will be the first film he's done for a U.S. studio.
