Colin Firth for yachting drama

Colin Firth is sailing around the world for his next movie, about an amateur yacht racer

January 28 2015 01:46 PM

Colin Firth is to star in a film charting the true story of an amateur sailor's failed attempt to win a round-the-world yacht race.

The Theory Of Everything director James Marsh is helming the movie, based on the mishaps of British businessman Donald Crowhurst, who took part in the Sunday Times Golden Globe Race in 1968, according to the Hollywood Reporter.

Crowhurst soon found he lacked the necessary experience and his boat was eventually found abandoned, leaving people to assume he had jumped overboard, or drowned.

Writer-director Scott Z Burns - whose scripts include The Bourne Ultimatum and Steven Soderbergh's Side Effects - has written the screenplay, which is believed to be based on the 2006 documentary Deep Water.

The project is being produced by Blueprint Pictures, BBC Films and Studio Canal and is due to begin shooting in the spring.