Inferno burns for Brad Pitt's Lost City Of Z

Inferno Entertainment has come aboard as international sales agent on James Gray’s red-hot adventure project The Lost City Of Z to star Brad Pitt.

Buyers have been flocking to the project, which is being styled in the vein of Lawrence Of Arabia and is based on Gray’s adapted screenplay of David Grann’s recent bestseller.

The true story takes place in the early twentieth century and charts 30 years in the life of Colonel Percy Harrison Fawcett, a former decorated British soldier turned explorer.

Fawcett developed an obsession for the Amazon and became convinced that an advanced civilisation lived within the interior after several adrenaline-fuelled expeditions where he narrowly escaped death from tribal encounters, deadly animals and devastating diseases.

He eventually lost backing for the trips and self-funded a final trek into the Amazon with his son from which neither returned.

It is understood Pitt’s Plan B will produce. Inferno’s Bill Johnson and Jim Siebel declined to comment, however they would most likely come aboard as executive producers.

Buyer enthusiasm and the tantalising prospect of such a broadly commercial role for Pitt would indicate that once the key elements come together The Lost City Of Z could commence principal photography after Pitt completes filming on the baseball drama Moneyball.

Inferno has been ramping up its commercial, star-driven slate. The Los Angeles-based company introduced Joe Carnahan’s thriller The Grey to buyers in Berlin, while Robert De Niro has joined Jason Statham and Clive Owen on thriller The Killer Elite, now in production, and Anthony Hopkins recently joined the cast of Arabian Nights.