EXCLUSIVE: Academy Award winners Kevin Costner and Leonardo DiCaprio are teaming to exec produce United, a TV series in early development that will be produced in collaboration with the United Nations, sources tell Deadline. Centered on a UN mission to East Timor in 1999, the show has Costner negotiating to play former U.S. President Bill Clinton, we’re told. Also eyeing to star, we hear, is Chukwudi Iwuji (Play Dirty), who would play UN Secretary General Kofi Annan.

The project is written and will be directed by David Raymond (Night Hunter), who partnered with the UN’s Creative Community Outreach Initiative during the tenure of previous UN Secretary Ban Ki-Moon and has been working with them ever since, unearthing true stories that highlight the power of shared humanity. It’s being approached as an ongoing series dramatizing true stories of the courage and sacrifice that humanitarian staff continuously make around the world.

Appian Way, Onwards Studios and Prime Focus DNEG will produce the series, which is slated to shoot in Atlanta and Spain next year. Fifth Season will handle distribution.

United presumably looks at the 1999 uprising in East Timor, which took place following a UN-organized independence referendum in the territory. East Timor was a Portuguese colony up until 1975, briefly asserting independence before being annexed by Indonesia, in an invasion supported by the administration of U.S. President Gerald Ford. In subsequent decades, those in the territory endured military repression, famine and widespread human-rights abuses. But by the late ’90s, Indonesia was politically weakened, and the people of East Timor were allowed to vote on whether to remain within Indonesia or become independent.

The United Nations established UNAMET — the United Nations Mission in East Timor — to organize and oversee a referendum, and despite intimidation by Indonesian-backed militias, almost the entire eligible population participated in the vote. The results demonstrated East Timor’s continuing, overwhelming preference for independence, and in turn, pro-Indonesia militia groups launched a devastating campaign of violence against their population, destroying critical infrastructure and killing at least 1,400.

The UN got more deeply involved in the international quagmire once Indonesia proved unwilling or unable to stop the violence, establishing the Australian-led International Force East Timor to help restore order, and later helping guide East Timor toward statehood. Elections were held, a constitution was drafted, essential governmental structures were established, and the territory became a fully sovereign nation in May 2002.

President Clinton and his administration played a critical role in de-escalating the situation in East Timor after the initial referendum, liaising with leaders in Australia, Portugal and other countries affiliated with the UN to pull it off.

Over the course of his career, Costner has portrayed many a historical figure, including Eliot Ness in The Untouchables; the Old West lawman title character in 1994’s Wyatt Earp; and Jim Garrison, the district attorney investigating JFK’s assassination, in JFK. Most recently, he’s worn multiple hats as director, co-writer, producer and star of Horizon: An American Saga, a multi-part Western epic for New Line. Costner also anchored the Taylor Sheridan series Yellowstone, which broke out as a pop culture phenomenon — the biggest show on cable television and a huge draw on Paramount+, which spurred a number of spinoffs. Among his other upcoming projects is Honeymoon with Harry, an Amazon MGM Studios dramedy where he’ll star opposite Jake Gyllenhaal. He is repped by WME and Jeffer Mangels Butler Marmaro.

In television, Iwuji’s credits include Peacemaker, Evil and The Day of the Jackal, to name just a few. Notable recent film credits include Play Dirty, Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 3 and the upcoming Chicago gangster pic Moses the Black. He is repped by Conway van Gelder Grant, WME, Suskin/Karshan Management and Granderson Des Rochers.

We were recently first to tell you about a biopic of a young Bela Lugosi, from screenwriters Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski, that DiCaprio’s Appian Way is developing for Universal Pictures. Known for bringing a humanitarian focus to its slate — with climate change, in particular, frequently up for exploration — Appian has recently produced Martin Scorsese’s Oscar-nominated Killers of the Flower Moon, starring DiCaprio, as well as titles including The Featherweight and Queen of Bones. The production company is repped by LBI and Hansen Jacobson Teller.