‘The Tribe’ Director to Helm ‘Tiger’ For Focus (EXCLUSIVE)

By Justin Kroll

LOS ANGELES (Variety.com) – Myroslav Slaboshpytskyi has come on to direct “Tiger” for Focus, sources tell Variety.

Darren Aronofsky’s Protozoa and Brad Pitt and Dede Gardner’s Plan B are producing.

The pic, based on the 2010 non-fiction book by John Vaillant, takes place on the Siberian plain, where human development is encroaching on the tigers’ habitat — and one turns on the intruders. With townspeople being tracked and hunted with an almost supernatural power, a conservationist game warden must face down the tiger. It is a fight that only one of them can win.

Focus acquired the book in 2010 and at one point the project was eyed as a potential acting vehicle for Pitt and directing job for Aronofsky. In the end the two have decided to stay on as producers and allow Slaboshpystskyi step in to direct.

The film had been in development limbo, but a recent presentation got the studio and producers excited about getting it into production.

Slaboshpytskyi broke on the scene with his pic “The Tribe” which premiered at the Cannes Film Festival and was eventually acquired by Drafthouse Films. He also directed the short films “Nuclear Waste” and “The Fall.”

He is repped by CAA and Lee Stobby Entertainment.