There's a new Somali drama in the works, which means it's time to get the two or three actors from the region Hollywood knows on speed dial. Barkhad Abdi, who was nominated for an Oscar for his performance in Captain Phillips, is set to star in Where the White Man Runs Away. And playing the white man in this scenario will be Al Pacino, who will be joined by Melanie Griffith.
The film marks the follow-up feature from writer/director Bryan Buckley, whose debut comedy The Bronze got hammered at Sundance last year (not by me) and is due in theaters next month. Where the White Man Runs Away already has Evan Peters (X-Men: Days of Future Past) set to star as real-life journalist Jay Bahadur, who spent months embedded with Somali pirates and wrote a book chronicling his time with them. Pacino plays fictional journalist Seymour Tobin, a Vietnam War correspondent with a passion for telling stories about the battlefield. Abdi will play a translator helping Bahadur through Somalia, while Griffith is the journalist's mother.
Production begins later this month, and this one could be interesting if they play up the Captain Phillips connection. Bahadur actually interviewed one of the pirates who would go on to hijack the ship at the center of the Tom Hanks-led film. [THR]
