Alfonso Cuaron to direct Life of Pi

Alfonso Cuaron, the director of Harry Potter: the Prisoner of Azkaban, and the acclaimed road movie Y tu mama tambien, is set to direct the film adaptation of Life of Pi, Yann Martel’s Booker-prize-winning novel.

The Mexican director is currently in talks to head the high-profile adaptation of the bestselling novel about a boy stuck in a boat with a tiger.

If negotiations are successful, Cuaron would be replacing M Night Shyamalan, the Sixth Sense director, whose name has been linked to the project for the last couple of years. Shyamalan last week decided to concentrate on another production, The Lady in the Water, a fantasy thriller about a siren found in a swimming pool. However, as Cuaron is currently casting for Children of Men, a sci-fi thriller based on a PD James novel, the Mexican director may not be able to begin work on Life of Pi straight away either.

The screenplay is by Dean Georgaris, whose previous credits include The Manchurian Candidate and the Ben Affleck thriller Paycheck.