Roland Emmerich is a busy man. He’s shooting his gay rights drama Stonewall this Spring, and he’s also gearing up to finally make the long-awaited Independence Day 2, which is expected to come directly after Stonewall.
However he’s already looking past that as Deadline reports that he has snapped up the screen rights to John Coe Robbins’ historical novel, Maya Lord.
The book is based on the true story of Gonzalo Guerrero, who in 1511 got shipwrecked during a storm and ended up on an uncharted shore in the New World. He and his crew members were then enslaved by a Mayan tribe. Soon realising there was little hope of escape (where were they going to go?), Guerrero decided to try to find ways to fit in with and advance in their society.
The Spaniard eventually became one of the tribe’s top warlords, which pitted his against his former countrymen when Cortes and other Spanish conquistadors arrived. Guerrero eventually married the daughter of a Mayan chief and is regarded as the father of the first Mestizo family, a term given to individuals of European and Native American descent.
Emmerich has apparently fascinated by the story for several years, although it won’t be his next project and hopes to turn it into a movie.
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