Jennifer Connelly is in negotiations to star opposite Leonardo DiCaprio in Warner Bros. Pictures' drama "Blood Diamond."

Edward Zwick will direct the film, which centers on a poor African farmer who gets caught up in a conflict between an American diamond smuggler (DiCaprio) and the syndicate that controls the local diamond mining industry.

The story is by Charles Leavitt and C. Gaby Mitchell, with a screenplay by Leavitt and Zwick & Marshall Herskovitz.

Producers are Paula Weinstein, who developed the project, Zwick, Herskovitz, Graham King and Gillian Gorfil. Len Amato also is likely to take a producing credit.

Polly Cohen is overseeing for Warners.

The studio is aiming to begin shooting early next year and is eyeing locations in Africa.

Connelly, whose credits include "House of Sand and Fog" and "Requiem for a Dream," recently wrapped Todd Field's "Little Children." She won an Academy Award for her supporting role in Ron Howard's "A Beautiful Mind."

She is repped by ICM.