Charlize Theron, Thunder Road to Produce Film About Slain War Reporter (Exclusive)

Charlize Theron and producer Basil Iwanyk are teaming up for a film about the life of recently killed war journalist Marie Colvin.

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Iwanyk and Thunder Road's Peter Lawson have optioned the Vanity Fair article "Marie Colvin’s Private War," with Theron and her Denver and Delilah Films partners Beth Kono and AJ Dix in talks to join Iwanyk as producers. The project is being eyed as a possible acting vehicle for Theron, though she has not committed to star.

A search for a writer to adapt the piece written by Marie Brenner is underway. (Brenner also wrote the article that became the 1999 Michael Mann movie The Insider.)

Colvin died in February while covering the civil war in Syria. She was a well-known American war correspondent who wrote for the British paper The Sunday Times, covering wars and conflicts from Kosovo and Chechnya to East Timor and Sri Lanka -- where she lost an eye.

Colvin specialized in Middle East affairs and was covering the Syrian uprising in a building that was being shelled by the Syrian Army when she died at age 56.

Colvin was known for her brash style and she fought to bring attention to the inhuman and blood-spilling scenes she witnessed She also endured three divorces and post-traumatic stress disorder in a careeer that made her one of the most important war journalists in the field.

Thunder Road's Lawson will executive produce.

The project is a change of pace for Iwanyk, whose recent credits include such popcorn hits as The Expendables, Clash of the Titans and its 2012 sequel, Wrath of the Titans. But he also was a producer on The Town, the Oscar-nominated crime movie directed by Ben Affleck. Insiders say that Iwanyk hopes to emulate the path blazed by Town and make a prestigeous and classy drama.

The last time Theron was involved in telling a true-life tale, she won a best actress Oscar for 2003's Monster, which she also produced. Among Denver and Delilah's film projects is Murder Mystery, to which John Madden (Shakespeare in Love) is attached to direct. She is repped by WME and Hansen Jacobson.

ICM Partners brokered the option deal.

Email: Borys.Kit@thr.com

Twitter: @Borys_Kit