Blackburn film director to make Russell Brand movie

4:05pm Thursday 1st May 2008

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BLACKBURN-born film maker Michael Winterbottom is to bring the life of comedian Russell Brand to the big screen, the Essex funnyman has revealed.

Former Queen Elizabeth's Grammar school pupil Mr Winterbottom, 47, will direct the self-styled lothario in a film version of Brand's autobiography, My Booky Wook.

A spokesman for the director confirmed that the project was at the "early stages of development".

But Brand said last week that he and "genius" Winterbottom - the man behind 24 Hour Party People, Nine Songs and The Road to Guantanamo - had already written a first script based on the autobiography.

He added: "My Filmy Film doesn't work so well, does it? Michael is a genius and won't, I think, allow me to give the film a stupid title.

"The difficult thing about working with someone so talented in his medium is that we can't really boss him about because he obviously knows better in that situation."

Brand, 32, who is currently starring as an English rock star in Forgetting Sarah Marshall, is famous for his hell-raising lifestyle involving sex and drugs.

He rose to prominence as the host of Big Brother's Big Mouth and as a BBC Radio 2 presenter, and he is now forging a career as a Hollywood actor.

Winterbottom, meanwhile, is famed for directing fact-based dramas, although he also made 2005's A Cock and Bull Story starring Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon.

A spokesman for Brand could not say when the new film would be released.