Lost city of zed real story movie#

So one day I found myself in the United Kingdom and months later in Amazonia. It was Fawcett’s chance to repair a broken part of his soul.ĭirector James Gray goes on his own search while creating ‘The Lost City of Z’ » The place enabled him to escape the rigid class structure of Europe and, later, the unfathomable horror of World War I.

For Fawcett, the jungle didn’t represent the savage or primitive for him, the jungle was magical. There was something different about this story. So I knew I couldn’t copy them - but I had an opportunity. Movies had been made in jungles before, of course, and by truly great filmmakers. There was World War I, apocalyptic and insane.Īnd there was that jungle, which I found both terrifying and inviting. There was Victorian England, stifling and suffocating, and downright vicious to those deemed not worthy. I could indeed make it personal, and I could do it framed against some truly vivid backdrops. I could relate to so much of it: the desire to fit in, to prove oneself, to search for the sublime. As I broke down the book into screenplay form, I began to see through the surface of the narrative, and it enabled me to uncover the more personal layers hidden inside. Some of the answers were right in front of me.

Lost city of zed real story movie#

In that way, he sounded to me like a typical movie director. He was brave and obsessed and more than a little bit crazy. On his final journey, he took his son with him and disappeared without a trace. And he’d ventured to the Amazon jungle - eight times, it turns out, in search of a lost city.

His life contained multitudes: He’d gone treasure hunting in Ceylon he’d been a spy in Morocco he’d fought in World War I and been injured by chemical weapons. He was from the turn of the last century, and his name was Percy Fawcett. It concerned a British explorer I’d never heard of. It also represented an enormous challenge. It was called “The Lost City of Z,” by David Grann, and it was every bit as good as I’d hoped it would be. I was beyond flattered, beyond excited and I wasted no time before cracking it open.

They called me, asking if I would read it. In late 2008, Dede Gardner and Jeremy Kleiner, the principals of Plan B (Brad Pitt’s esteemed production company), bought the rights to a book.