Bookish Brits

Proving that the pen has lost none of its power, top UK directors Stephen Daldry and Michael Winterbottom are both looking inside a book or two for their next big projects. And the canny fellows have chosen the right producer for it too. Both Daldry and Winterbottom have teamed up with New York uber-producer Scott Rudin whose many, many credits include Wonder Boys, The Truman Show and Iris and has a formidable reputation for getting films made from novels, not least Daldry's much-feted The Hours and his upcoming The Corrections from the bestselling tome by Jonathan Franzen. This time the Billy Elliot director is taking over the reins from Sydney Pollack to helm Michael Chabon's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel "The Amazing Adventures Of Kavalier & Clay" about an escape artist who flees Nazi Europe and teams up with his brother in Brooklyn to write comic books. Word is that Rudin is keen on upping the UK quota even more by casting Jude Law in the larger role of Kavalier. Winterbottom, meanwhile, has landed Freedomland, a film of Richard Price's 1998 novel about the racial politics sparked off by a carjacking of a single mother and the abduction of her son in New Jersey scripted by the author himself. Currently in pre-production for futuristic thriller Code 46 with Tim Robbins and Samantha Morton, if further proof of the 24 Hour Party People director's rising star was actually needed, Freedomland has already bagged no less than Julianne Moore in the lead role. Is that the feint whisper of Oscar buzz we're hearing?