Ang Lee close to Life of Pi

Ang Lee is negotiating to direct an adaptation of Life of Pi, based on Yann Martel’s coming-of-age survival tale, according to Variety.

Gil Netter is producing the project for Fox 2000 Films.

The story revolves around a child who is the sole survivor of a sunken freighter and winds up sharing a lifeboat with a hyena, an injured zebra, an orangutan and a hungry Bengal tiger.

Life of Pi has been through several incarnations, first with writer Dean Georgaris, and then M. Night Shyamalan was attached to the project. Lee is expected to supervise a new script.

Ang Lee’s most recent project is Taking Woodstock, an adaptation of a book by Tom Monte, about the historic 1969 music fest, which Focus Features will release in August.