Jude Law has joined director Werner Herzog’s long-in-development Gertrude Bell biopic Queen of the Desert.  Described as the female Lawrence of Arabia, Bell worked extensively in the middle east and was responsible for establishing what would become the modern framework for Jordan and Iraq. She worked for British Intelligence during World War I, and was key in the dismantling of the Ottoman Empire and subsequent founding of Iraq.  Robert Pattison is already onboad to play T.E. Lawrence (ie. Lawrence of Arabia), while Naomi Watts is poised to play Bell.  THR reports that production is set to begin in March 2013 in Morocco.

Ridley Scott had also been developing a Gertrude Bell biopic of his own with Angelina Jolie, but it appears that Herzog beat him to the punch.  Law is next set to film Wes Anderson’s The Grand Budapest Hotel and will be seen in February in Steven Soderbergh’s thriller Side Effects.