State Of Play has been in something of a state of flux ever since Universal nabbed the rights to make an Americanised version of the BBC’s classy miniseries last year.

But now, with Brad Pitt still committed to take the lead originally played by John Simm in the TV version, Kevin Macdonald has come aboard to call the shots.

He’s just guided Forest Whitaker to an Oscar for The Last King Of Scotland, and apparently he’s eager to take on the adaptation as his next film. "I was absolutely hooked on the six-hour TV drama and I know it's a hard act to follow, but I wanted to do something that tackles the way we as a society in America and Europe learn what's going on, and how much we can trust newspapers and the nightly news," he gushed to Variety.

The plot, much like the BBC’s, will follow the events after a politician’s mistress is killed and journalists secretly work with the police to investigate the crime. Pitt will play a leading reporter who used to be close to the politician (in the American version, a congressman) but now is forced to investigate the conspiracy surrounding his old friend.

Matthew Michael Carnahan, who wrote The Kingdom and has just finished scripting White Jazz with brother Joe, has penned the script. Macdonald plans to get the cameras cranking in November.