The Ghost and the Darkness is a 1996 historical adventure horror film starring Michael Douglas and Val Kilmer set in Africa at the end of the 19th century. It was directed by Stephen Hopkins and the screenplay was written by William Goldman. The film tells a fictionalised account about the two lions that attacked and killed workers at Tsavo, Kenya during the building of the African Uganda-Mombasa Railway in 1898. It won an Academy Award for Sound Editing. In 1898, Sir Robert Beaumont , the primary financier of a railroad project in Tsavo, Kenya, is furious because the project is running... behind schedule. He seeks out the expertise of John Henry Patterson , a military engineer, to get the project back on track. Patterson travels by train to Tsavo, where he meets supervisors Angus Starling and Samuel , a native African , and the doctor, David Hawthorne . Hawthorne tells Patterson of a recent lion attack. That night, Patterson kills an approaching lion with one shot, earning the respect of the workmen. The project gets back on schedule.
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| Release date: | October 11, 1996 |
| Directed by: | Stephen Hopkins |
| Rated: |  |
| Runtime: | 109 Minutes |
| Producer: | Paul B. Radin, A. Kitman Ho, Gale Anne Hurd |
| Editor: | Roger Bondelli, Robert Brown, Steve Mirkovich, Bert Lovitt |
| Music by: | Jerry Goldsmith |
| Cinematography: | Vilmos Zsigmond |
| Screenplay by: | William Goldman |
| Estimated budget: | $55,000,000 |
| Adapted from: | The Man-eaters of Tsavo |
| Genre: | Adventure, Action, Thriller |