Filming of Daniel Pearl movie starring Angelina Jolie to start next week

Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie were in the western Indian city of Pune on Friday, where they will shoot scenes for a movie they are making on the life of slain journalist Daniel Pearl, a member of the film crew said.

Photo: Filming of Daniel Pearl movie starring Angelina Jolie to start next week

Filming of Daniel Pearl movie starring Angelina Jolie to start next week

Neither Pitt nor Jolie made any public comments Friday, but were spotted at the Le Meridian Hotel in Pune.

In the nearby suburb of Aundh, about 50 workers spent Friday readying a spacious bungalow for the start of filming next week, according to a set manager who did not want to be named because the crew has been warned that leaking information to the media could cost them their jobs.

Elsewhere in the city, assistants scouted more locations for "A Mighty Heart," in which Jolie is playing Pearl's widow, Mariane.

Pearl, a Wall Street Journal reporter, was kidnapped and murdered in Pakistan in 2002 while researching a story on Islamic militancy.

The set manager said the Pune bungalow was chosen becomes it closely resembles a home in Karachi, Pakistan, where Pearl and his wife spent time.

He said the filming would take three days, but was unable to confirm Pitt and Jolie's schedule.

Security for the star couple was so tight that their arrival in Pune by private jet Thursday was missed by television reporters and journalists waiting at the airport.

"There was very tight security as requested by them.They were whisked out of the airport from the cargo section so that the press and no one else could catch a glimpse of them," said Deepak Shastri, the airport director said Friday.

Indian newspapers have carried stories about dozens of rooms booked in top hotels in Pune, 160 kilometers (100 miles) south of Mumbai.

In Pakistan, crew members ran into trouble in July while filming without permission near Karachi's Village restaurant, where Pearl had planned to meet a contact shortly before his abduction, reports AP.

Officials halted the filming and police and federal agents arrested three Pakistani men who were wearing police uniforms and carrying guns for impersonating policemen, police said.

The movie is based on an adaptation of Mariane Pearl's book, "A Mighty Heart: The Brave Life and Death of My Husband Danny Pearl," and will be co-produced by Plan B, a production company founded by Pitt and his ex-wife, actress Jennifer Aniston.