The "Beasts of No Nation" star will star in the romantic drama that once saw Charlie Hunnam and Rosamund Pike attached as a pair who fall in love while stranded in the wilderness after a plane crash, said the Hollywood Reporter.
But that pair fell out, and then Chris Weitz was brought in to do a rewrite and get the film in shape for an early summer shoot somewhere in the Southern Hemisphere, where it will be winter.
The studio will move quickly to cast its female lead opposite Elba.
J Mills Goodloe and Scott Frank wrote earlier drafts of the screenplay.
