Ewan McGregor Starring In War Comedy Remake The Cow

They've just worked together again on Disney's Christopher Robin, but Ewan McGregor and director Marc Forster are set to reunite once more for a new film with a very different animal. McGregor will star in comedy film The Cow.

This new collaboration will see McGregor as Charlie Granger, an American pilot who joined the Royal Air Force during World War II, taking part in bombing runs over Germany. When he's shot down and imprisoned in a farm, his escape plan involves a fake pass and a cow called Marguerite. Together, the pair makes for France, which is around 200 miles away, trying to evade German soldiers, inhospitable terrain and an amorous bull. As the journey continues, Charlie becomes Marguerite's main caretaker, until he's forced to choose between his freedom and her death.

It's a remake of 1950s French film La Vache Et Le Prisonnier, itself based on Jacques Antoine's book. Forster optioned the rights to remake the movie more than 10 years ago, and won over McGregor as they shot Christopher Robin. "It’s a road movie in a sense and will have that pacing, and at the same time it is by nature comedic," Forster tells Variety. "The backdrop is the reality of a war, and they come across moments and circumstances that remind you of that. But their relationship is very humorous, intimate and emotional." Bill Prady, one of the creators of sitcom The Big Bang Theory, wrote the most recent script.

With the cameras due to roll in the autumn, it should be out next year. Christopher Robin, meanwhile, is scheduled to land in UK cinemas on 17 August.