Director James Gray is developed a script based on the life of Percy Harrison Fawcett called “The Lost City of Z.”  Gray is developing the story from David Grann’s book and hopes to have the screenplay done in the next two months. Gray also hopes the script will interest actor Brad Pitt in the lead role of Fawcett, wh while on assignment to establish the border between Bolivia and Brazil when he heard the legends of El Dorado, the lost city of gold, and quit his day job to go adventuring.
“People don’t realize what recent history the mapping of the world is,” Gray said. “He went down there and rather quickly lost his appetite for mapping, which he did with wonderful success. He became obsessed with archaeological issues and, to be direct about it, went quite mad.”
“You know, Indiana Jones was based on him,” Gray added. “Of course, it’s the Republic B serials approach to the character and doesn’t bear any resemblance, finally, but he sort of was the basis for Indiana Jones. The stuff in the book is unbelievable. Falling off the raft and starting to get eaten by piranhas. He literally was the first person in Western civilization to discover the anaconda. They didn’t believe him. He said, “I saw a 30-foot snake that was eating deer.” People thought he was making it up.
Hmm. Interesting, though I’ll adopt a wait and see attitude for now.