While Ridley Scott adores attaching himself to things, only some of which he’ll actually direct, currently he’s developing a biopic about Gertrude Bell, and has set The Constant Gardener’s Jeffrey Caine to pen the screenplay.
Deadline reports that Scott and producing partner Giannina Facio see it as an opportunity to lock in a strong and powerful actress to play the complicated Gertrude Bell, who thrived during a tumultuous time period not kind to women.
Bell was a well-to-do student from England who attended Oxford University before finding her calling in the desert, where she became a seminal figure in Middle Eastern politics before the start of World War I, acting in roles that ranged from archaeologist and diplomat, to photographer and spy. While she helped sort out the borders of Iraq after the fall of the Turkish Empire, she lost favour with the UK government for strongly advocating Arab self-rule, as they preferred direct access to the oil fields.
Ridley Scott is also currently prepping a biopic on the Gucci family dynasty while he shoots his sci-fi opus Prometheus. It isn’t known which of these two biopics will shoot first, although it would appear the Gucci flick is further along in development.