Skydance and China’s Alibaba Pictures will jointly finance and produce Flying Tigers, a World War II drama to be scripted by Braveheart writer Randall Wallace.

Skydance’s David Ellison and Dana Goldberg will produce the global release with a team from Alibaba Pictures.

Also known as the 1st American Volunteer Group of the Chinese Air Force, the Flying Tigers was a group of volunteer pilots from the US Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps that fought alongside the Chinese during World War II.

There have previously been other attempts to make a feature film about the pilots, including a long-gestating project to be directed by John Woo and backed by China Film and Cyrte Investments.

“Flying Tigers carries with it a rich legacy and a movie about this subject matter has been highly anticipated for a very long time,” said Alibaba Pictures president Zhang Wei.

“It is an ideal piece of content in which to invest and produce with Skydance, a studio with a proven track record of bringing films to the big screen that are both sweeping in scope and universal in appeal.”

Skydance previously collaborated with Alibaba on Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation, which it produced with Paramount Pictures. Skydance’s upcoming slate includes Star Trek Beyond, Jack Reacher: Never Go Back and Geostorm.

Wallace picked up an Oscar nomination for Braveheart. He also wrote and directed The Man In The Iron Mask, We Were Soldiers and Heaven Is For Real and wrote the screenplay for Pearl Harbor.

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