Andrew Adamson to direct Mister Pip

Andrew Adamson. Photo / Brett Phibbs

Narnia director Andrew Adamson has been confirmed to direct the film adaptation of Lloyd Jones' award-winning novel Mister Pip.

The New Zealand director, best known for his work on the Shrek and Chronicles of Narnia franchises, is reported to have written the script and will film the project in Australia, before completing post-production in New Zealand.

Written by Wellington-based author Jones, the novel was shortlisted for the Booker prize in 2007.

Set on the island of Bougainville in Papua New Guinea,against a backdrop of civil war, Mr Watts is the only white man left on the island, who steps in to become the local schoolmaster, sharing the delights of Dickens with his young students.

Reading the trials and tribulations of Pip from Great Expectations, the story comes to mirror Dickens' epic, as one young girl, Matilda, survives the war to tell her own story.

Adamson has a personal connection to the setting as he grew up in Papua New Guinea. He lived there from the age of 11 to 18 with his missionary parents, and only got into film-making after a car accident on the island left him with a broken leg, causing him to miss his university enrolment for architecture school.

The film version will be produced by New Zealander Robin Scholes, the woman behind Once Were Warriors and The Tattooist.

Scholes told Screen Daily the film was likely to be a three-way co-production between New Zealand, Australia and Britain.

A production start date has yet to be confirmed but casting is said to be under way.