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Shekhar Kapur to make Four Feathers next

Paran Balakrishnan in London

Shekhar Kapur, the internationally acclaimed director of Bandit Queen and Elizabeth, is about to start filming The Four Feathers, the story of a 19th century British soldier who was branded a coward and shunned by his comrades.

Kapur has already travelled to Morocco to start pre-production work on the big budget movie which is being brought out by Miramax, the Hollywood giant.

The Victorian adventure tale will star Heath Ledger, who starred in The Patriot, as the soldier who resigns just before a battle and is presented with four feathers for his perceived cowardice.

The Four Feathers is based on a fast-paced novel by A E Mason and the movie's script has been written by Hossein Amini who has worked on box-office hits like The Wings of the Dove.

It will be Kapur's first major project after the award-winning Elizabeth which raked in around $ 30 million at the box-office.

Kapur is expected to start work on Phantom of the Opera in collaboration with composer Andrew Lloyd-Webber in the not too distant future.

The Four Feathers is set in 19th century Sudan and is the story of how its protagonist has to perform four acts of bravery to return each of the four feathers presented to him. The events take place during an uprising in the Sudan.

Kapur's Four Feathers will be the third version of the book to reach the screen. It was made into a movie by the celebrated British director, Alexander Korda in 1939. A second version was made in 1978 and starred Beau Bridges and Jane Seymour.

Lloyd-Webber and Kapur have been holding discussions about filming Phantom for almost two years. They recently selected British comedy writer Ben Elton to adapt the stage hit for the big screen.

Kapur and Lloyd-Webber are also working with music director A R Rahman on Bombay Dreams which is being planned as a big budget musical.

Miramax have produced box-office winners like Shakespeare in Love and low-budgets hits like East is East. They have also produced other acclaimed films like The Talented Mr Ripley and Fargo which picked up several awards.