It’s been revealed today that Academy Award winning actor Russell Crowe (Man of Steel) is going to star in the upcoming film In Sand and Blood, IM Global’s upcoming “epic drama” which is set to revolve around white slavery.
The project appears to still be in the very early stages of development, as it’s currently unknown whether or not Crowe will also direct (he recently made his directorial debut with The Water Diviner). However, we do know that the script is being written by Ronan Bennett (Public Enemies) and may be based on Dean King’s book Skeletons on the Zahara: A True Story of Survival.
Here’s the official synopsis for In Sand and Blood, including details on who Crowe will be playing:
In 1815, an American brig, the Commerce, was wrecked on the desolate coast fringing the Western Sahara. Starving and dying of thirst, its 12 man crew were captured, stripped, beaten and enslaved, kept barely alive on camel blood and urine. Five were never to be seen again, the others sold to a succession of tribesmen who bought and bartered each man for as little as a tattered blanket.
An Arab trader, Sidi Hamet, then bought Captain James Riley (Crowe) and some of his men, aiming only to sell them on at a profit. By impassioned advocacy and sheer bluff, Riley convinced Hamet that he would receive a far greater ransom from a European consul – that in truth existed only in Riley’s imagination – who was supposedly based in a Moroccan port a thousand miles to the north. What followed was an epic, terrifying and, for some, ultimately fateful trek across one of the most extreme environments on earth.
In Sand and Blood sounds like it has all the makings of a great movie then, but will it land Crowe another Oscar nomination? We’ll just have to wait and see, but we’ll certainly be keeping our eye on this one as it develops.
Published: Sep 29, 2015 05:07 pm