Randall Wallace, best known for his Oscar-nominated script for Braveheart, has signed on with Disney to direct Secretariat, a film about the 1973 Triple Crown-winning racehorse and owner Penny Chenery.
Varietyreports that Mike Rich, screenwriter for The Nativity Story, The Rookie and Finding Forrester, is writing the script for Secretariat.
Wallace and Rich, both Christians, have never worked together on a film, though Wallace did have a bit role as "Texas Oilman" in 2002's The Rookie. They have both spoken to CT Movies about their faith and work.
Disney hopes to start production on the film in early 2009.
According to Variety, Chenery knew little about horses when she took over her ailing father's horse farm in Virginia. After her father died, she was pressued to sell the farm and she was hit with a multimillion-dollar inheritance tax. But she saved both the farm and a young horse named Secretariat, who went on to become the first thoroughbred to win the Triple Crown in 25 years. Chenery became known as the "first lady of racing."
Wallace, a graduate of Duke University where he majored in religion, teamed up with Mel Gibson on Braveheart (Gibson directed and starred), and paired up with Gibson again for 2002's We Were Soldiers (Wallace wrote and directed, Gibson starred). Wallace recently finished a script for Atlas Shrugged, based on the novel by Ayn Rand and scheduled for a 2009 release.
Rich recently finished a script for Manhunt, the story of Colonel Everton Conger leading the hunt for Abraham Lincoln's assassin.
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