Ben Affleck Will Direct Upcoming Movie 'King Leopold's Ghost'

Ben Affleck is taking on a new directing gig!

The 47-year-old Triple Frontier actor will direct King Leopold’s Ghost, a drama about the plunder of the Congo by Belgium’s King Leopold II in the late 1800s, Deadline reported on Thursday (November 21).

The script is based on the Adam Hochschild book, King Leopold’s Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror and Heroism in Colonial Africa.

Here’s a synopsis: “Set at a moment when European countries were racing to find ways to carve up the natural resources of Africa, Leopold became the world’s richest man with billions stashed in secret bank accounts by gaining private ownership of the Congo Free State, and inserted a mercenary army to cruelly plunder rubber and ivory. He forced the locals to harvest it. Those who refused were dismembered or worse, and the book estimates that as many as 8 million were killed in this ruthless pursuit. The book was previously the basis for a 2006 documentary. This film is an account of the Congolese who defied Leopold II and fought back.”

Ben last directed Live By Night, Argo and The Town, and is taking on this project “out of his personal passion for the region.”

The film was originally considered for a limited series, but now has been settled on as a movie.

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