Tilda Swinton, Hugh Laurie, Ben Whishaw And More Join David Copperfield

The Death Of Stalin's Armando Iannucci already has Dev Patel ready to star in his new adaptation of one of Charles Dickens' classic stories, The Personal History Of David Copperfield. He's boosting the ensemble with more actors, including Tilda Swinton, Hugh Laurie, Ben Whishaw and Aneurin Barnard.

Iannucci plans a modern take on the story, which follows a young protagonist who forges a path as a successful author despite a lack of personal discipline. Dickens published the book in 1850 and largely based the main character on himself.

With an adaptation written by the director and regular collaborator Simon Blackwell, he should be shooting this year, though Variety's story offers no details as to which characters the new additions will play. Morfydd Clark, Anthony Welsh and Rosalind Eleazar have also all joined the cast for the film, which should be out next year.

In related Iannucci news, he's also just signed on to direct a new film called In Too Deep for Levantine Films. Iannucci wrote the script with John Finnemore, but no plot details have been released yet.