20th Century Boards ‘Children Of The Jungle’ Movie From Producer Giannina Scott
EXCLUSIVE: 20th Century Studios has boarded an adaptation of Children of the Jungle, with Giannina Scott aboard to produce and Roberto Bentivegna penning the script. Scott will produce through her Cara Films banner alongside Scott Free’s Ridley Scott and President of Film Michael Pruss.
The script is based on investigative journalist Mat Youkee’s book Forty Days in the Jungle and follows the June 2023 rescue of four Indigenous children after the light aircraft carrying them crashed and left them for 40 days in the Colombian Amazon rainforest. Their challenges have been heralded as one of the great survival stories of all time.
Through interviews with the family, members of the Indigenous community and military search teams as well as elders from Colombia’s Amazonian communities, Forty Days in the Jungle recounts the story in the words of its complex young characters. It goes deeper, however, in investigating the brutal history, resilient culture and current struggles of Colombia’s Indigenous communities by shining a light on the historical contexts preceding the crash and the aftermath of the rescue.
Giannina Scott brought the project to Scott Free and won a competitive auction for Youkee’s book proposal together with the Scott Free team. Around that time, in May 2024, the story became global headline news.
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Scott’s relationship with Bentivegna began when she brought him on board to adapt and write House of Gucci starring Lady Gaga, Adam Driver, Al Pacino, Jack Huston, Salma Hayek and Jeremy Irons. The 2021 movie that was produced by Giannina Scott and Scott Free, with Ridley Scott directing for MGM.
Prior to that, Giannina Scott produced Mark Felt: The Man Who Brought Down the White House starring Liam Neeson and Diane Lane and written and directed by Peter Landesman. She also produced the Will Smith-starring Concussion, the Sony Pictures drama that followed the true story of neuropathologist Dr. Bennet Omalu who made the first discovery of CTE, a football-related brain trauma, and fought to expose the dangers of the sport.
She also co-produced Tristan & Isolde, directed by Kevin Reynolds and staring James Franco,
Sophia Myles and Rufus Sewell; and Matchstick Men staring Nicolas Cage, Sam Rockwell and Alison Lohman, directed by Ridley Scott and written by Ted Griffin. She brought that project to Ridley Scott to direct.
