Angelina Jolie to make film about Catherine the Great

Angelina Jolie has bought the film rights to a book about Catherine the Great of Russia and her lover.

Catherine the Great and Potemkin: The Imperial Love Affair, by Simon Sebag Montefiore, recounts the love affair of Catherine and Prince Grigory Potemkin. The author’s literary agency, Georgina Capel Associates, announced that Jolie’s production company, Jolie Pas, had bought the right to make the book into a film or television series. Details of Jolie’s role in the production have yet to be revealed.

Montefiore welcomed the news: “I feel very safe with Angelina in charge of it. […]This is a dream team to bring Catherine and Potemkin, these exceptional and flamboyant characters, to the screen.”

Catherine the Great, a Prussian princess who married into the Russian royal family, ruled from 1762 to 1796, becoming empress after a coup against her husband, Peter III. Her love affair with Potemkin lasted for a great number of years and many believe that they were secretly married.

Numerous films and television programmes have already been made about Catherine, most notably the 1996 film Catherine the Great, starring Catherine Zeta Jones.