Jennifer Aniston and Jack Huston are set to star in The Yellow Birds, an adaptation of the Kevin Powers novel
A big screen adaptation of Kevin Powers’ The Yellow Birds has today set Jennifer Aniston and Jack Huston to headline. The Hollywood Reporter has the news, bringing word that the latter replaces the formerly-attached Benedict Cumberbatch. A veteran of the Iraq war, Powers published The Yellow Birds novel in 2012 with the following official description:
“The war tried to kill us in the spring.” So begins this powerful account of friendship and loss. In Al Tafar, Iraq, twenty-one-year old Private Bartle and eighteen-year-old Private Murphy cling to life as their platoon launches a bloody battle for the city. Bound together since basic training when Bartle makes a promise to bring Murphy safely home, the two have been dropped into a war neither is prepared for.
In the endless days that follow, the two young soldiers do everything to protect each other from the forces that press in on every side: the insurgents, physical fatigue, and the mental stress that comes from constant danger. As reality begins to blur into a hazy nightmare, Murphy becomes increasingly unmoored from the world around him and Bartle takes actions he could never have imagined.
The Yellow Birds, also set to star Alden Ehrenreich and Tye Sheridan, will be directed by Alexandre Moors. Moors, an accomplished commercials and music videos director, helmed the DC Sniper story, Blue Caprice.
Aniston will play the mother of Ehrenreich’s character with Huston attached to play an accomplished military sergeant who leaves a strong impression on Bartle and Murphy.
The Yellow Birds is being produced by Mark Canton, Jeffrey Sharpe and Courtney Solomon. Jim Kohlberg will executive produce with Cinelou Films set to finance.
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