The Coen Brothers will rewrite the script for "Unbroken," a Universal Pictures spokesman told TheWrap.
However, Joel and Ethan Coen, the outré minds behind "Fargo" and "No Country for Old Men" won't slide behind the director's chair on the project. Those duties will fall to Angelina Jolie, who previously directed "In The Land of Blood and Honey" (2011), a romantic drama set against the backdrop of the Bosnian War.
William Nicholson ("Les Misérables") had turned in an earlier draft of the screenplay to "Unbroken."
The film is an adaptation of Laura Hillenbrand's 2010 non-fiction account of a former Olympic track star's astounding quest to survive imprisonment as a prisoner of war after his plane crashes in the Pacific theater during World War II.
The book was a bestseller, and Hillenbrand has had great success mining similar true-life tales of uplift in the past. Her book "Seabiscuit: An American Legend" provided the basis for an Oscar-nominated 2003 film starring Tobey Maguire.
The Coen Brothers typically are possessive of their screenplays, although they do have another script-for-hire film coming out this year with "Gambit." The remake of the 1966 heist film stars Colin Firth and Cameron Diaz and was directed by Michael Hoffman ("Soapdish").
Earlier this month, CBS Films acquired U.S. distribution rights to the brothers' next film "Inside Llewyn Davis," which will look at the Greenwich Village folk scene in the 1960s. The film is expected to be released theatrically in the second half of this year.
The Coen Brothers are represented by UTA. The Hollywood Reporter first reported their hire for "Unbroken."
