Thea Sharrock to direct Disney's 'The One and Only Ivan'

Thea Sharrock, director of the tearjerker "Me Before You", is in early talks to direct "The One and Only Ivan", Disney's adaptation of the Newbery Medal-winning book written by Katherine Applegate and illustrated by Patricia Castelao.
Allison Shearmur, who was one of the producers on Disney's live-action take on "Cinderella" as well as "Rogue One: A Star Wars Story", is on board to produce the adaptation, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
Published by HarperCollins in 2011, the book centers on a silverback gorilla named Ivan who lives in a cage in a shopping mall along with an elephant named Stella and a stray dog called Bob.

Ivan does not remember life before the mall, but when a baby elephant enters and Ivan finds himself taking care of her, he begins to rediscover his previous life and concocts a plan to take the baby elephant away from their abusive owner.
Applegate, who also created the late 1990s book series Animorphs with her husband, Michael Grant, based the story on a real-life gorilla named Ivan who spent 27 years in a Washington mall before being transferred to the Atlanta Zoo.