According to a recent article in Charisma News by Tiffany Brannon, Hollywood icon Angelina Jolie (Kung Fu Panda 2, Salt) will be directing a new movie about the life of a Christian POW. Taken from Laura Hillenbrand’s biography of Olympic track athlete Louis Zamperini, Unbroken will star Jack O’Connell, Garrett Hedlund (Tron: Legacy), and Alex Russell (The Host). Born the son of Italian immigrants, Louis Zamperini grew to become a talented runner on his high school track team and even participated in the 1936 Berlin Olympics. With the outbreak of WWII, Zamperini became a bombardier in the United States Air force. In was during one of his missions in the Pacific Ocean that Zamperini’s aircraft was shot down, resulting in the capture of him and a fellow survivor by Japanese forces.
Zamperini would go on to survive the horrors of Japanese imprisonment, and later give his life to Christ at a Billy Graham crusade. Charisma News states,
“Jolie, who recently started filming the project in Australia, has said she’s inspired by Zamperini and that the two have grown to be close friends. While Hillenbrand’s biography touched on Zamperini’s incredible faith, it did not emphasize it—something that will hopefully be rectified through Jolie’s personal relationship with Zamperini and first-person witness to his Christian testimony.”
Unbroken is set to release on Christmas of 2014. To learn more about the life of Louis Zamperini, check out the review of Laura Hillenbrand’s biography by clicking here.
