Saoirse Ronan to star in Chesil Beach movie

Oscar-nominated actress Saoirse Ronan is to star in a movie version of the bestselling novel On Chesil Beach.

The 2007 Booker Prize shortlisted novel by Ian McEwan is set in 1962 and tells the story of young newly-weds on honeymoon on the Dorset coast.

Ronan - up for the best actress Oscar for Brooklyn - will play the young wife Florence but her co-star, playing her husband Edward, is yet to be announced.

The film will be Ronan's second McEwan adaptation after 2007's Atonement.

Atonement, which also starred Keira Knightley and James McAvoy, won Ronan her first Oscar nomination and was directed by Joe Wright.

She was up for best supporting actress for playing the little Briony Tallis whose misunderstanding of a situation she unwittingly witnesses leads to the tragic events that drive the story on.

On Chesil Beach will be led by the theatre director Dominic Cooke, who was formerly the artistic director of London's Royal Court theatre.

And the production company will be Number 9 Films, the team behind the award-winning Carol, whose star Cate Blanchett and co-star Rooney Mara are also in the running for best actress and best supporting actress Academy Awards.

Producers Elizabeth Karlsen and Stephen Woolley said of their new project: "It's an extremely exciting prospect to be reunited with Saoirse Ronan on such a beautiful and heartbreaking project."

Ronan previously worked with the production company on the 2012 film Byzantium, a drama also set in a remote coastal location.

McEwan's story, which some class as a novella since it is only just over 200 pages long, is set on the laconic beach of the title, where Florence and Edward are staying in a modest hotel.

Chesil Beach, a real and well-known location, is famous for its 18-mile length, of which much is separated from the mainland by a sea-salt lagoon, and the special quality of its stones.

This is the first time McEwan's story has been adapted for the screen. The same is true of Brooklyn, which is a film taken from a novel by Irish author Colm Toibin.

Filming for On Chesil Beach will begin this autumn.

Before then, Ronan will next be seen on stage in The Crucible on Broadway from 1 March.