Lee Daniels, the “Precious” director, has signed on to head a new project – the film adaptation of “Anna in the Tropics.”
The story is based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning Broadway play by Nilo Cruz and takes place in Tampa in the 1920s.
It’s about a family of Cuban cigar rollers whose lives are changed by the power of literature.
“I always saw it as a film,” says Cruz. “Even though I wrote is as a play, I just think it has endless possibilities as a film. The play itself is full of images and I want to open it up to the world film offers.”
Cruz will meet with Daniels in January to begin tackling the project, and sees a lot of common ground between the two artists.
“I loved his use of fantasy and quotidian life in Precious. It was a wonderful combination. I think my piece also deals with similar level of reality,” says Cruz.
