Angelina Jolie is a riding a little bit of a hot streak right now. Her summer movie tentpole “Salt” was a solid box-office success ($216 million worldwide) and she will certainly own the Christmas season when her other spy movie, the decidedly breezier “The Tourist” with Johnny Depp hits theaters. Not only that, she is currently hard at work prepping her writing and directorial debut, an untitled Bosnian war set drama. Things are looking up at producers GK Films, who are working with Jolie on the latter film, are hoping to keep that relationship moving.
Deadline reports that Christopher McQuarrie (“X-Men Origins: Wolverine 2,” “The Usual Suspects,” and one of the scribes on “The Tourist”) has been hired to write an adaptation of the British miniseries “Unforgiven” as a starring vehicle for Jolie. The story follows “a woman’s attempt to rejoin society after she serves a 15-year prison stretch for the murder of two policemen. The tragedy happened after the policemen came to evict her family from their farmhouse. Her hope is to live quietly and reunite with her troubled younger sister, but the paroled woman is targeted for a revenge campaign by two sons of one of her victims.”
It sounds like a nifty little genre flick that should be right in McQuarrie’s wheelhouse and GK Films have put the project on a fast track, probably in a hope that Jolie will make the film her next starring role. That said, Jolie needs a finished script first before she decides and given that she’s about to start directing her next gig, and that McQuarrie is still writing, don’t expect any decisions on “Unforgiven” soon.
Jolie will enter production on her Bosnian war film this fall and “The Tourist” hits theaters on December 10th.