Armando Iannucci to direct a modern take on David Copperfield (the book, not the magician)

Veep creator Armando Iannucci has lined up another film project, which happens to get another adaptation: According to Variety, he’s directing and co-writing a “modern take” on Charles Dickens’ David Copperfield.

Iannucci not only adapted his hit British sitcom In The Thick Of It for HBO’s Veep, thereby giving the premium cabler one of its best and most profane comedies, but he’s also reimagined Fabien Nury’s graphic novel The Death Of Stalin for the big screen. Now he plans to update Dickens’ classic novel, which was itself inspired by the British author’s life. All we know about the plot so far is that this new David Copperfield will “[navigate] a chaotic world to find his elusive place within it.” Maybe Iannucci will take inspiration from another David Copperfield, and make “magician” one of his protagonist’s career pit stops on the way to becoming a fiction author.

There’s no telling just how many liberties Iannucci (and his co-scribe Simon Blackwell) will take with 168-year-old novel, but he probably won’t raise nearly as much ire in England as he has in Russia with The Death Of Stalin.