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A decade after they played the deliriously happy but doomed young lovers in Titanic, the biggest box office hit of all time, Kate Winslet and Leonardo di Caprio are to be reunited on screen.
But in their latest movie, announced yesterday, they have been cast as a couple whose unsatisfactory marriage is crumbling - under the direction of Winslet's real-life husband, Sam Mendes.
The new film, Revolutionary Road, is based on the celebrated novel by the American writer Richard Yates which tells the story of Connecticut suburbanites Frank and April Wheeler.
It has been developed by BBC Films and Neal Street Productions, the company Mendes co-founded after leaving the Donmar Warehouse theatre, and is being backed by Steven Spielberg's DreamWorks.
Winslet, 31, read the script some time ago and loved it, her representative said yesterday.
Mendes, 41, whose working relationship on film with DreamWorks stretches back to his first Oscar-winning movie American Beauty, had long had it in his diary to direct next year.
But the entire project will now be filmed in 11 weeks' time in the US after the deal to bring after di Caprio, 32, on board was agreed with a flurry of calls in the last fortnight.
David Thompson, head of BBC Films, said: "You dream about these things and occasionally they all come good. It's fantastic about the casting. We've assembled a team beyond our wildest dreams.
"There's an enormous excitement because Kate and Leo haven't worked together since Titanic and they're both at the top of their game, so we'll be thrilled to see them together. But this film is on a different emotional plane. It's a searing drama."
Winslet will play April, who has thwarted ambitions to be an actor, while di Caprio will play her husband, who endures a futile corporation job with the assistance of too much drink and the distraction of an office affair.
The BBC bought the rights to the book, a classic released the same year as Catch-22 in America, more than three years ago.
The screenplay has been written by Justin Haythe, a British writer who also wrote The Clearing starring Robert Redford and Helen Mirren.
"It's an absolutely remarkable book with an incredibly powerful love story," Mr Thompson said.
To be working with such outstanding talent from both sides of the Atlantic was particularly exciting, he added.
- INDEPENDENT
