Russell Crowe is fresh from his directorial debut 'The Water Diviner', and he has made headlines again as he was confirmed for the film 'In Sand and Blood'. While the role Crowe would be taking on is still unconfirmed, the 51-year-old actor has already started his research for the historical drama.

According to Empire Online, Crowe recently tweeted a picture of men riding camels in the desert as the sun sets, captioned "Research. #insandandblood." The story follows the fate of an American ship wrecked on the coast of Western Sahara. Based on a memoir detailing the events that happened in 1815, the book "Authentic Narrative of the Loss of the American Brig Commerce" was republished as "Sufferings in Africa" and now being turned into the movie 'In Sand and Blood'.

We Got This Covered reported that 'In Sand and Blood's main character will be the writer of the memoir American sea captain James Riley. He and the rest of the crew were enslaved by marauding natives. Before being able to sell themselves to a trader, and eventually making it to a European official in Morocco, the captain and his crew suffered starvation, beatings and deaths of colleagues.

In a report by Variety,  Luc Roeg joins IM Global CEO Stuart Ford and production president Matt Jackson in producing 'In Sand and Blood'. Apparently, the film has been underway since 2010 with Ronan Bennett (Public Enemies) penning the script, based Dean King's nonfiction book "Skeletons on the Zahara: A True Story of Survival." The movie will be directed by Saul Dibb (Suite Francaise, The Duchess).

'In Sand and Blood' has no announced release date yet. Hopefully, Russell Crowe signing up for the film may mean the  film is almost ready to come out of the script/treatment stage. Crowe is also set to appear in 'Fathers and Daughters' for 2015, and 'The Nice Guys' in 2016.