Fox Acquires Animation Rights To ‘The Eagle Huntress’

20th Century Fox Animation is picking up animation remake rights to the documentary The Eagle Huntress, a girl-empowerment film about a Kazakh girl learning the ancient (and traditionally male practice) of hunting with golden eagles.

The live-action documentary, which premiered at Sundance last January, was executive produced by documentary filmmaker Morgan Spurlock (Super Size Me) and Star Wars actress Daisy Ridley. Its North American theatrical distribution rights have already been acquired by Sony Pictures Classics, but Fox thinks that it has potential for a CG-animated film, too. The animated version could potentially be headed to Fox-owned Blue Sky Studios, whose last film was The Peanuts Movie.

Ice Age helmer (and Blue Sky co-founder) Chris Wedge will produce the animated adaptation of The Eagle Huntress, and Darren Lemke (Turbo, Jack the Giant Slayer, Shrek Forever After) is attached to script the film, per a report in Variety. Fox Animation exec Darlene Caamano Loquet and division president Vanessa Morrison will oversee the project.

This is the synopsis of the documentary version:

For 2,000 years, the Kazakh people of the Altai region in western Mongolia have practiced a tradition of hunting with golden eagles, whose wingspan can reach up to 7.5 feet wide. Though this practice has traditionally been the domain of men, 13-year-old eagle huntress Aisholpan decides that she wants to become an apprentice hunter after spending her childhood helping her father, a renowned eagle hunter, care for his birds. Under the tutelage and support of her father and her grandfather—and very few others—Aisholpan learns all aspects of falconry, from taming her very own eagle to training for an annual competition, where she will compete against 70 eagle hunters on her quest to gain acceptance.