Warner Bros. has attached Jennifer Lawrence to star in director Steven Spielberg’s “It’s What I Do: A Photographer’s Life of Love and War,” sources confirm.
The studio won an auction Monday for the rights to the memoir by Lynsey Addario, the award-winning international photojournalist.
“American Sniper” producer Andrew Lazar is on board the drama.
The project attracted multiple offers after an excerpt of Addario’s memoir appeared in the the New York Times Magazine. ICM is repping the author.
Addario, who has traveled to war-torn countries like Afghanistan, Libya and Iraq, won the MacArthur Fellowship in 2008 and was part of the New York Times team that won a Pulitzer Prize in 2009 for International Reporting for her work in Waziristan. She was jailed for several days in Libya in 2011.
Wynn Wygal at Lazar’s company will oversee “It’s What I Do.” Racheline Benveniste and Julia Spiro are overseeing for the studio.
Spielberg is in post-production on the untitled DreamWorks-Disney Cold War thriller, starring Tom Hanks as attorney James Donovan, which has been dated for Oct. 16. The studios have also set Spielberg’s adaptation of Roald Dahl’s children’s book “The BFG” for July 1, 2016.
Lawrence is currently shooting David O. Russell’s “Joy,” which is set for a Christmas release by Fox. She’ll be seen next in Lionsgate’s “The Hunger Games: Mockingjay — Part 2″ in November.
Other bidders for the project included Working Title Films with Reese Witherspoon attached; Darren Aronofsky with Natalie Portman attached; and The Weinstein Company with George Clooney and Grant Heslov involved and Margo Robbie starring.
CAA reps Lawrence and Spielberg.