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Sam Rockwell isn’t even going to wait until Oscar night to start lining up potential gigs for the rest of the year. He’s just been cast in Disney’s adaptation of Katherine Applegate’s The One and Only Ivan to voice the title role of Ivan the gorilla, the Tracking Board confirms.
The movie version of Applegate’s 2011 Newberry Metal-winning book is being directed by Thea Sharrock (Me Before You) based on a script by Mike White (Brad’s Status). Angelina Jolie has already been cast to voice one of the lead characters in the live action hybrid, and she’s also one of the film’s producers.
The Florida Project‘s Brooklynn Prince has also been cast to voice Ruby, while Ariana Greenblatt, who stars on Disney Channel’s Stuck in the Middle, is playing one of the live action leads.
The movie is produced by Brigham Taylor with Jolie and the late Allison Shearmur, who developed the project before her passing. So far, there is no start-of-production or release date, but one expects that Sharrock’s team is already working on the animated portion of the film.
Rockwell is currently on quite a roll during awards season, having won a Golden Globe, a SAG award, a BAFTA award AND the Critics Choice award for his supporting role in Martin McDonagh’s Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri. The actor also recently finished playing George W. Bush in Adam McKay’s biopic about former U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney opposite Christian Bale. (For some reason I thought Will Ferrell would play that role in the movie, but nope!)
This won’t be Rockwell’s first voice role and not even his first one for Disney, since he voiced a character in the studio’s 2009 family film G-Force, which grossed nearly $300 million worldwide.
Repped by Gersh and Untitled Entertainment, Rockwell’s casting was initially reported by the Hollywood Reporter.
Edward Douglas | East Coast Editor
