If that sounds a bit weird to you, we can assure you it sounds weird to us.

Armando Iannucci, best known for creating Alan Partridge with Steve Coogan, last year's excellent The Death Of Stalin, and - of course - The Thick Of It, Veep, and In The Loop, is directing an adaptation of Charles Dickens' novel. Need it to be weirder? Simon Blackwell, who co-created Peep Show, is writing the screenplay with Iannuci.

So, yeah. Odd. The only thing that isn't odd is that Oscar-nominated actor Dev Patel has been signed on for the lead role, according to THR. The film's being described as a fresh take on Dickens' novel, and will likely be set in London and in our time. After that, there's not much to tell, but it does say a lot that Iannuci is branching out and away from the comfortable territory he's been in for the past while. Presumably, the adaptation will have some kind of comedic aspect to it as it's both Blackwell and Iannuci working on the script.

After that is anyone's guess. No release date has been scheduled for David Copperfield.

 

Via THR