RZA further builds his career as a Hollywood director and Kasi Lemmons is set to adapt/direct the film version of a critically acclaimed South African novel.

Lemmons, who directed 2007’s Talk to Me, has signed on to bring author Marlene van Niekerk’s tome Agaat to the big screen. Set in the apartheid-era South Africa of the 1950s-'90s, the story takes place on a farm where an unhappy white couple — Milla and Jak de Wet — live.  Also living with them is their half-adopted, half-enslaved Black maid, Agaat, who ascends to power over the farm after Jak dies and Milla grows gravely ill.

"[The book] is quite possibly the best and most profound book I've ever read," Lemmons said of the novel. Her deadline to deliver the screenplay is next month.

Hip hop producer and Wu-Tang Clan leader RZA has agreed to direct both the biopic Genghis Khan and the action thriller No Man’s Land. RZA, who makes his directorial debut with the kung-fu action film The Man With the Iron Fists next week, agreed to helm the story about Khan, one of the great military figures in world history. Told from the view point of Khan’s son and grandson, the film tells the life story of the ruler who united the Mongol tribes and conquered great parts of Asia and Eastern Europe in the early 13th century.

For the crime thriller No Man’s Land, RZA will direct the story centering on a man who steals a powerful criminal's diamond. The boosted goods soon prove to be more valuable than what was initially thought.

The screenplay for No Man’s Land was written by David Klass and novelist Trey Ellis. Producers on the project include Quentin Tarantino and Reginald Hudlin.

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(Photos from left: Craig Barritt/Getty Images, Jordan Strauss/Getty Images)