Mamet to direct 'Diary of Anne Frank'

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HOLLYWOOD, Aug. 12 (UPI) -- Pulitzer Prize-winning American playwright David Mamet is tapped to write and direct a new version of "The Diary of Anne Frank," studio officials said.

Disney acquired the rights to film the new version of the film that Mamet will produce with Andrew Braunsberg, Variety reported Tuesday.

The true story, written by a young Jewish girl hiding from the Nazis with her family, marks a somber direction for Disney, known for films such as "The Little Mermaid," "Return to Witch Mountain," and "Mary Poppins," and television shows such as "Hannah Montana" and "The Suite Life of Zack and Cody."

The book recounts Frank's family's two years living in secret in the annex of her father's office building in Amsterdam during the Holocaust. Frank kept recording events around her until her family was discovered and sent to several concentration camps, including Bergen-Belsen, where Anne and her sister Margot eventually died of typhus in 1945.