Ever since Yann Martel’s extraordinary novel Life of Pi captured the attention of Hollywood seven years ago, directors have tried and failed to find a way to adapt the story for the silver screen. Now Brokeback Mountain director Ang Lee says he’s the man for the job.

Fox 2000 acquired the rights to produce a film based on the book in 2003, and since then such talented and award-winning directors as Alfonso Cuaron, M. Night Shyamalan and Jean-Pierre Jeunet have tackled and been defeated by the project. Indiewire today reveals that Lee and his producing partner Gil Netter are now pitching Fox on a version of the story that Netter says is “a 3D magical fantasy adventure, crammed with visual effects.”

The story of a young Indian boy cast adrift in a small boat with a tiger, a zebra and a hyena, Martell’s book won countless awards upon its publication, most notably the Booker Prize.

The film, however, presents numerous challenges to anyone hoping to film it. Not least of these is that it’s not exactly safe to put a young boy in the same boat as a tiger. Or a hyena. Lee addressed these issues last year when he first began circling the project, telling Empire “In the old days I think maybe you wouldn’t have needed it, but nowadays the animal rights people wouldn’t let you do it, so we’ve got to go more expensively.”

Thus the need for a whole lot of CGI, which Lee is apparently keen to do in the new 3D format that Hollywood has fallen in love with. Whether or not 3D is enough to convince audiences to spend two hours in a small boat with a child and a tiger remains to be seen.

(Photo by PR Photos)

Story provided by the Dish Information Corporation