THN have received these great first images as we find Angelina Jolie directing and producing UNBROKEN, an epic drama that follows the incredible life of Olympian and war hero Louis “Louie” Zamperini (Jack O’Connell) who, along with two other crewmen, survived in a raft for 47 days after a near-fatal plane crash in WWII—only to be caught by the Japanese Navy and sent to a prisoner-of-war camp.
Director Jolie began shooting some of the most dramatic and challenging scenes on this week, on location far out at sea in Moreton Bay, Australia, with Zamperini (O’Connell) and his fellow airmen—Phil (Domhnall Gleeson) and Mac (Finn Wittrock)—having impossibly survived being adrift in the open Pacific for several weeks.
UNBROKEN is adapted from Laura Hillenbrand’s enormously popular book and you can check out these first production shots below:
Starring alongside O’Connell, Gleeson and Wittrock are Garrett Hedlund and John Magaro as fellow POWs who find an unexpected camaraderie during their internment, Alex Russell as Zamperini’s brother, Pete, and in his English-language feature debut, Japanese actor Miyavi as the brutal camp guard known only to the men as “The Bird.”
The film is produced by Jolie and, very excitingly, leading the accomplished behind-the-scenes crew is 10-time Oscar-nominated cinematographer Roger Deakins, who you’d know recently for SKYFALL. It’s a Joel and Ethan Coen rewrite of the screenplay from earlier drafts by William Nicholson (LES MISERABLES) and Richard LaGravenese, so she’s in very good hands there.
UNBROKEN is currently set for a late 2014/early 2015 release.
