EXCLUSIVE: It’s been a few years since we heard about writer-director Michael Winterbottom’s A Farewell to Arms adaptation, but it now has fresh impetus with producer-financier Tribune Pictures and UK sales firm Embankment Films, which is bringing it to the Cannes market.

Fremantle is among the original partners who are no longer aboard the film, which will see Hunger Games and Billy The Kid star Tom Blyth follow in the footsteps of Gary Cooper, Rock Hudson and George Hamilton in the lead role.

First published in 1929, A Farewell to Arms is widely regarded as one of the defining war novels of the twentieth century. Drawing on Ernest Hemingway’s own experiences as a volunteer ambulance driver with the Italian Army on the Isonzo Front during the First World War, the novel became an international sensation and cemented Hemingway’s status as one of America’s most influential literary voices.

The story follows Frederic Henry, a young American ambulance driver serving in Italy who is wounded during the war and falls in love with the British nurse Catherine Barkley. The team is aiming for a January 2027 start.

The film will be produced by Tribune Pictures’ Robert Maclean and Michael Paletta alongside Revolution Films’ Melissa Parmenter, with the support of the Hemingway Estate.

Robert Maclean and Tribune Pictures’ recent films include the Hemingway adaptation Across the River and into the Trees, The Wizard of the Kremlin (Olivier Assayas), Dead Man’s Wire (Gus van Sant), and In the Hand of Dante (Julian Schnabel).

Welcome To Sarajevo and The Trip director Winterbottom, who won a Berlin Golden Bear for In This World, said today: “Hemingway believed in paring a story down to the bare bones. He argued that a novel could be like an iceberg: the reader only sees the tip above the water but feels the bulk and weight of what lies below the surface. I want our film to be true to Hemingway’s approach — immediate, raw and natural — and I think in Tom Blyth we have found the perfect person to be Frederic Henry.”

Tom Blyth, for whom the project has long been a passion, commented: “As a lover of Hemingway and a big admirer of Michael Winterbottom’s filmmaking, it’s an honour to be trusted with this adaptation. Michael has adapted the script in a way that totally pays homage to Hemingway’s style, while lifting the story from book to screen in a fresh and exhilarating way. With the world once again facing conflicts not seen in generations, this story couldn’t be more pertinent and necessary. And yet at it’s heart, despite its tragedy, it’s a story of hope and love surviving against all odds. I can’t wait to bring one of my favourite books and characters to life on the big screen”