Ali
Former Batman Ben Affleck will direct a fact-based drama about the plunder of the Congo by Belgium’s King Leopold II in the late 1800s.
“King Leopold’s Ghost” says Deadline, will be produced by Affleck, Martin Scorsese and Emma Koskoff-Tillinger; Harry and Gina Belafonte are also producing, with Pearl Street’s Madison Ainley exec producing.
Farhead Safinia’s script is based on the book ‘King Leopold’s Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror and Heroism in Colonial Africa’. Set at a moment when European countries were racing to find ways to carve up the natural resources of Africa, Leopold became the world’s richest man with billions stashed in secret bank accounts by gaining private ownership of the Congo Free State, and inserted a mercenary army to cruelly plunder rubber and ivory. He forced the locals to harvest it. Those who refused were dismembered or worse, and the book estimates that as many as 8 million were killed in this ruthless pursuit.
Affleck’s last stint behind the camera was an adaptation of the Dennis Lehane novel “Live by Night”.
Via ‘Deadline‘
