Watchmen's Malin Akerman and Ryan Phillippe have signed on to star in the indie drama The Bang Bang Club, set in apartheid-era South Africa.

According to Variety, South African documentarian Steven Silver wrote the script based on a memoir by Greg Marinovich and Joao Silva and will direct.

Akerman will star as a photo editor of the so-called Bang Bang Club, four combat war photographers -- Marinovich (Phillippe), Kevin Carter (Taylor Kitsch), Ken Oosterbroek and Silva -- whose photographs captured the final bloody days of white rule in South Africa.

The film is a Canada/South Africa co-production and will be distributed worldwide by E1 Entertainment.

Lensing will begin next month in and around Johannesburg.