Clint Eastwood is set to direct Angelina Jolie next in The Changeling, but it appears his follow-up feature may be shaping up already as Variety reports he is eyeing the director’s chair for the adaptation of the John Carlin book “The Human Factor: Nelson Mandela and the Game that Changed the World.”
Morgan Freeman is already aboard the feature, which is set up at Warner Bros., to play Nelson Mandela. The movie would be about how the 1995 Rugby World Cup helped heal post-apartheid race relations in South Africa, and Matt Damon is now in preliminary talks to play the captain of the Springboks.
The story is set right after the fall of apartheid, and after Mandela was released from a long imprisonment and became South African president. Mandela recognized the significance when South Africa was selected host of the 1995 Rugby World Cup after the team had been barred from even competing since the 1980s because of apartheid.
Freeman already went to South Africa with Revelations producing partner Lori McCreary last spring to get Mandela’s blessing on the project.
