Kiera Knightley will play Zelda in F Scott Fitzgerald biopic

The rage for bringing anything connected with F Scott Fitzgerald to the screen – his short story, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, starring Cate Blanchett and Brad Pitt, is being tipped to do well at this year's Oscars – is unabated.

It was announced a few months back that an eagerly-awaited Fitzgerald biopic, called The Beautiful and the Damned after Fitzgerald’s second novel, had hit the rocks when its director, Nick Cassavetes, suddenly decided to drop out. But the producers have now hired John Curran to direct the movie, which will star the British actress Keira Knightley (pictured).

Knightley will take on the role of Fitzgerald's wife, Zelda Sayle. Although it should begin filming in March, and is scheduled for release in 2010, no actor has yet been found to play the troubled writer, who died a broken alcoholic in 1940.

Another mooted Fitzgerald project, reported in the Hollywood trade paper Variety, is a remake of his masterpeice The Great Gatsby, to be directed by Baz Luhrmann. It was last filmed by the British director Jack Clayton in 1974, with Robert Redford as Jay Gatsby and Mia Farrow as Daisy.