With production now underway on Disney Pictures’ The One and Only Ivan, it has been announced that Helen Mirren and Danny DeVito have become the latest additions to the cast of the live-action/CG hybrid adaptation of Katherine Applegate’s Newbery Medal-winning book.
Directed by Thea Sharrock (Me Before You), The One and Only Ivan features a cast that also includes Angelina Jolie (Maleficent), Sam Rockwell (Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri), Bryan Cranston (Breaking Bad), Brooklynn Prince (The Florida Project), Indira Varma (Game of Thrones), Ramon Rodriguez (The Defenders), Eleanor Matsuura (Wonder Woman) and Ariana Greenblatt (Stuck in the Middle).
The film sees Rockwell as the titular Ivan, a silverback gorilla “who lives in a cage in a shopping mall along with an elephant named Stella (Jolie) and a stray dog called Bob. Ivan does not remember life before the mall, but when a baby elephant named Ruby enters and Ivan finds himself taking care of her, he begins to rediscover his previous life and concocts a plan to take the baby elephant away from their abusive owner.”
The One and Only Ivan is currently without a release date, but is expected to arrive some time in 2019.
