Jai Courtney Lands Jolie's "Unbroken" & Crowe's "Diviner"

 Jai Courtney has signed on to both the biopic drama "Unbroken" and Russell Crowe's directorial debut "The Water Diviner" says Deadline.

"Unbroken" is based on author Laura Hillenbrand's 2010 bestselling biography, that chronicles the life of Olympic athlete Louis Zamperini  ("Skins" and "Eden Lake" star Jack O'Connell). He was captured by the Japanese navy and detained at a P.O.W. camp. That came AFTER he survived both a near-fatal plane crash and being stuck on a raft for 47 days.

Courtney will play Hugh 'Cup' Cuppernell, a WWII veteran pilot who gets caught in tenacious midair gunfight alongside Zamperini.

Garrett Hedlund ("On the Road," "Tron: Legacy") will play fellow P.O.W. Commander John Fitzgerald Domhnall Gleeson ("About Time," "Anna Karenina") will play a fellow survivor of the plane crash. Alex Russell ("Chronicle) will play Pete, Zamperini’s older brother and member of the US athletics team for the 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin. John Magaro will play Frank A. Tinker, an Air Force dive bomb pilot and opera singer who befriends Zamperini en route to a Japanese POW camp. Japanese guitarist and singer Miyavi will play the role of that overseer Mutsuhiro Watanabe, known as 'The Bird', who made it his mission to break the spirit of Zamperini. Aussie actor Jordan Patrick Smith would play Cliff, an Australian prisoner who can’t take life in the prison camp much longer. Finn Wittrock also stars.

"Les Miserables" writer William Nicholson penned a script draft for the pic. Richard Lagravenese worked on the script before that, but with Angelina Jolie now in the big chair a new draft was needed and she managed to convince the Joel and Joel Coen to do it.

Jolie came onboard as director last December, replacing the previously linked Francis Lawrence.   This film  marks Jolie's second effort as director following "In The Land Of Blood And Honey".

Matthew Baer ("The Replacement Killers") Clayton Townsend and Erwin Stoff ("The Blind Side") are producing with Jolie. Mick Garris is executive producing

Filming begins in Australia soon ahead of a Christmas Day 2014 release.

"Diviner" starts just after the end of World War I, an Australian father arrives at Gallipoli in Turkey to recover the bodies of his sons. He soon finds hope where he thought there was none.

Courtney will play Lt. Col. Cecil Hilton in the film, a soldier tasked with organizing the effort to identify the tens of thousands of soldiers killed at the battle. He reluctantly allows the man to stay and look for his sons' bodies.

Olga Kurylenko also stars.

Aussie TV and movie veteran Andrew Anastasios and newcomer Andrew Knight wrote the script.

Troy Lum Andrew Mason and Keith Rodger are due to produce the pic.

The film will go into production on December 2nd in Australia and Turkey.