Dan Stevens will star as Charles Dickens in a new movie.

Dan Stevens

Dan Stevens

The former 'Downton Abbey' actor has landed the role of a young Dickens in 'The Man Who Invented Christmas', a film based on the book by Les Standiford which tells the story of how the famous author created 'A Christmas Carol'.

According to Deadline, Christopher Plummer will appear as Scrooge and Jonathan Pryce will portray Dickens' father.

The story begins in 1843 when Dickens had seen his first three books flop so he decided to self-publish a tome in the hope he could make money for his family - and he came up with the now-world famous 'A Christmas Carol'.

Bharat Nalluri will direct the movie, the US rights of which have been acquired by film distribution company Bleecker Street.

Karpen, Bleecker Street's CEO, said: "'The Man Who Invented Christmas' is an emotionally rich story of Dickens' creative process and illustrates his love of the holiday spirit.

"We look forward to bringing Bharat's film to audiences for the 2017 holiday season."

Paula Mazur, Mitchell Kaplan, Andrew Karpen and Vadim Jean will executive produce the movie, while Robert Mickelson and Ian Sharples will produce the motion picture.

Filming will begin in December ahead of an expected 2017 release.

As well as 'A Christmas Carol', Dickens - who died in 1870 - was behind some of the world's best-known pieces of fiction, including 'Oliver Twist', 'Great Expectations' and 'David Copperfield'.

Stevens is to appear as The Beast in Disney's forthcoming musical movie 'Beauty and the Beast' in March alongside Emma Watson, who plays Belle.

Earlier this year, he signed up to star in romantic comedy film 'Permission' alongside Rebecca Hall and the movie is now in post-production.

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