RIDLEY SCOTT - RIDLEY SCOTT AND CASEY AFFLECK TO COLLABORATE ON KIND ONE

Ridley Scott has been snapped up to direct upcoming literary adaptation The Kind One, reports claim.

According to Variety, the Gladiator helmer has signed to adapt Tom Epperson's recently-published debut novel of the same name, with Epperson himself writing the screenplay.

Oscar nominee Casey Affleck was contracted to star in the film in February, while Scott and Jules Daly - who produced Affleck in The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford - will produce the noir drama.

Affleck will play Danny Landon, an amnesiac who is told he's a renowned Los Angeles gangster known as Two-Gun Danny who once committed mass murder during a heist at sea.

When Danny falls in love with the alcoholic girlfriend of his sadistic mob boss - ironically nicknamed The Kind One - he lands himself in a whole world of trouble.

"It's a world that Ridley has never touched before, so that's what drew him to the project," Daly told Variety after the Blade Runner director joined the project.

Affleck was attached to take the lead role in the 1930s-set noir drama, just two weeks after the publication of Epperson's novel.

Though the author's adaptation of his own screenplay was delayed by the writers' strike, his screenwriting credentials promise an exciting cinematic proposition, having collaborated with childhood friend Billy Bob Thornton on the scripts for One False Move, A Family Thing and The Gift.