Unreasonable Behaviour: Angelina Jolie to Direct Don McCullin Biopic

November 19, 2020

Academy Award-winning actress Angelina Jolie has officially signed to helm the upcoming biopic drama titled Unreasonable Behaviour, centering around the life of British war photographer Don McCullin. The film will also be produced by Oscar nominee Tom Hardy (Mad Max: Fury Road) through his Hardy Son and Baker banner.

“I am humbled to have a chance to bring Don McCullin’s life to film,” Jolie said in a statement (via Deadline). “I was drawn to his unique combination of fearlessness and humanity – his absolute commitment to witnessing the truth of war, and his empathy and respect for those who suffer its consequences. We hope to make a film that is as uncompromising as Don’s photography, about the extraordinary people and events he witnessed, and the rise and fall of a unique era in journalism”.

Based on McCullin’s 2002 autobiography of the same name, the film will chronicle the life of the legendary photographer whose worked dates back from 1956’s Suez Crisis, to wartime London, to the wars in Biafra, Congo, Vietnam, and Cambodia, as well as the African AIDS epidemic. Best known for his often harrowing black and white images taken in Vietnam and Cambodia while working for The Observer and The Sunday Times Newspapers, McCullin risked his life to capture the images of war which continue to resonate to this day.

“Having viewed Angelina’s last film on Cambodia (and having spent so much time during the war there) I was very impressed at how she made such a powerful and accurate representation of the place at that time. I feel as if I am in safe, capable and professional hands with her,“ McCullin said.

Pick up a copy of his novel here!

Unreasonable Behaviour will be written by Gregory Burke with McCullin and Mark George set as executive producers, Hardy Son and Baker’s Dean Baker will also be producing along with Tim Bevan and Eric Fellner for Working Title Films.

Angelina Jolie gained recognition for her performances in films such as Girl, Interrupted, Lara Croft: Tomb Raider, Mr. & Mrs. Smith, The Good Shepherd, Wanted, Changeling, and Maleficient. This project marks as her sixth feature as a director following her works on A Place in Time, In the Land of Blood and Honey, Unbroken, By the Sea and First They Killed My Father.