Oscar winner Mel Gibson and filmmaker Sean Penn will star in the movie based on the story of Professor James Murray, the linguist who compiled the Oxford English Dictionary in 1857.
The story line will be picked from the novel 'Professor and the Madman', originally published as 'The Surgeon of Crowthorne' in England in 1998, reports The Independent.
Though Gibson acquired the film rights in 1995, it took him two decades to move ahead. Originally associated to filmmaking, the 60-year-old director will be seen portraying Murray in the flick.
Sean Penn will play Dr W.C. Minor, a mental asylum inmate. Writer Farhad Safinia, who created the political character Kelsey Grammar in 'Boss', will be directing the movie.
