Deadline reports that Maleficent star and Unbroken director Angelina Jolie has signed on to both star in and produce the adaptation of the 2014 frontier novel The Kept.
Based on the novel by James Scott, the story takes place in the winter of 1897 in upstate New York as a killer moves upon an isolated farm. Midwife Elspeth Howell arrives home to find her husband and four of her kids have been murdered and she is wounded by the killer, with her 12-year-old son Caleb coming out of hiding and finding his wounded mother and tending to her until she is well enough for them both to find the killer.
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The film adaptation will be written by Alice Birch, most known for the 2016 acclaimed British drama Lady MacBeth, and produced by Jolie for Imperative Entertainment alongside Dan Friedkin and Bradley Thomas, while Imperative Head of Film Jillian Apfelbaum will oversee the production.
Imperative is currently working on the production of Clint Eastwood’s upcoming crime drama The Mule based on the true story of a WWII veteran who began selling drugs for the Sinaloa cartel in his 80s, which is currently filming in Atlanta and Augustus, Georgia, and last helped produce the crime thriller biopic All the Money in the World based on the famous Getty kidnapping fiasco in 1973.
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Jolie, who has recently been making a name for herself as a director following her 2014 debut war biopic Unbroken with last year’s biopic thriller First They Killed My Father for Netflix, will be seen in the upcoming Disney movies The One and Only Ivan based on the children’s novel of the same name and Maleficent II, which finished filming in August and is scheduled for a May 29, 2020 release.
