Djimon Hounsou is in final negotiations to star in the drama "Blood Diamond" for Warner Bros. Pictures.

Leonardo DiCaprio already has boarded the project, which will be directed by Edward Zwick. Jennifer Connelly is in negotiations to join the cast (HR 10/12).

Set in war-torn Sierra Leone, "Blood Diamond" centers on a poor African farmer (Hounsou) who gets caught up in a conflict between an American diamond smuggler (DiCaprio) and the syndicate that controls the local diamond mining industry. Connelly is set to play an American journalist.

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.

Shooting is scheduled to begin in February in South Africa and Mozambique.

Hounsou, whose credits include "Gladiator" and "Amistad," is filming 20th Century Fox's fantasy "Eragon." He was nominated for an Academy Award for his supporting role in Jim Sheridan's "In America."

He is repped by the Gersh Agency, Brillstein-Grey and attorney Gerald Edelstein.