Michael B. Jordan's Outlier Society and Warner Bros. have acquired the film rights to the recently-released African epic fantasy novel from Marlon James, Black Leopard, Red Wolf. It is the first product of the first-look film deal that Jordan and Outlier signed with Warner Bros. earlier this month. Here's the description of the much-buzzed-about novel (often described as an African Game of Thrones), which takes inspiration from African mythology:

Tracker is known far and wide for his skills as a hunter: "He has a nose," people say. Engaged to track down a mysterious boy who disappeared three years earlier, Tracker breaks his own rule of always working alone when he finds himself part of a group that comes together to search for the boy. The band is a hodgepodge, full of unusual characters with secrets of their own, including a shape-shifting man-animal known as Leopard. As Tracker follows the boy's scent--from one ancient city to another; into dense forests and across deep rivers--he and the band are set upon by creatures intent on destroying them. As he struggles to survive, Tracker starts to wonder: Who, really, is this boy? Why has he been missing for so long? Why do so many people want to keep Tracker from finding him? And perhaps the most important questions of all: Who is telling the truth, and who is lying? Drawing from African history and mythology and his own rich imagination, Marlon James has written a novel unlike anything that's come before it: a saga of breathtaking adventure that's also an ambitious, involving read. Defying categorization and full of unforgettable characters, Black Leopard, Red Wolf is both surprising and profound as it explores the fundamentals of truth, the limits of power, and our need to understand them both.

The book is the first in a planned trilogy from James, the also the author of A Brief History of Seven Killings, which Melina Matsoukas was attached to adapt at Amazon back in 2017. Jordan's Outler Society was one of the first production companies to adopt an inclusion rider across all projects. Outlier has many projects on its upcoming slate, including the TV projects David Makes Man (at OWN) and Raising Dion (at Netflix). READ MORE: Big Moves: Michael B. Jordan's Production Company Signs First-Look Deal With Warner Bros.

Black Leopard Red Wolf