Disney’s live-action/animation hybrid, The One and Only Ivan, has signed up the services of one Angelina Jolie to voice a character and produce the film which is based on the 2011 Newbery Medal-winning book by Katherine Applegate.

Inspired by the true story of a captive gorilla known as Ivan, the illustrated novel follows the animal who has spent twenty-seven years behind the glass walls of his enclosure in a shopping mall and has grown accustomed to humans watching him. He hardly ever thinks about his life in the jungle.

Instead, Ivan occupies himself with television, his friends Stella (Jolie) and Bob, and painting. But when he meets Ruby, a baby elephant taken from the wild, he is forced to see their home, and his art, through new eyes.

The film adaptation has been in the works at Disney since 2014, in 2016 Mike Newell was down to direct the animation live action crossover before stepping down.

The One and Only Ivan

Me Before You’s Thea Sharrock will take the helm on the film that was written by School of Rock’s Mike White.

Angelina Jolie is about to embark on another Disney project, the sequel to Maleficent in which she plays the lead, Maleficent has an idyllic life growing up in a peaceable forest kingdom, until one day when an invading army threatens the harmony of the land. Maleficent rises to be the land’s fiercest protector, but she ultimately suffers a ruthless betrayal? an act that begins to turn her pure heart to stone. Bent on revenge, Maleficent faces an epic battle with the invading king’s successor and, as a result, places a curse upon his newborn infant Aurora. As the child grows, Maleficent realizes that Aurora holds the key to peace in the kingdom? And, perhaps to Maleficent true happiness as well.