Roger Donaldson ("Thirteen Days") has come aboard to develop "Abyssinia," reports Variety.
Donaldson came aboard with the intent of directing the epic love story framed by Mussolini's World War II invasion of Ethiopia.
John Rice and Joe Batteer ("The Last Samurai") adapted the Bartle Bull novel "A Cafe on the Nile."
"Abyssinia" follows a safari guide who is forced to usher his ex-g.f. and her husband to Egypt after they witness the destruction of a Red Cross camp amid the Italian army's preparations to invade Abyssinia.