Neil Burger to direct Hollywood version of The Intouchables

Director Neil Burger will take charge of the Hollywood remake of hit French movie The Intouchables.

Bridesmaids and Ghostbusters filmmaker Paul Feig had initially planned to lead the project, but he dropped out after writing the screenplay. My Week With Marilyn director Simon Curtis was also considered for the job, but now officials at The Weinstein Company have tapped Limitless' Burger to direct.

Bryan Cranston and Kevin Hart have been cast as the leads in the new movie, in which the Breaking Bad star will play a paraplegic aristocrat who hires a man from the projects, portrayed by Hart, as his caregiver following a tragic paragliding accident.

Now titled The Untouchables, the film will be based on Olivier Nakache and Eric Toledano's 2011 original, in which Francois Cluzet played the disabled man and Omar Sy his sidekick. The French movie became the second biggest box office hit in France following its launch, and went on to make more than $410 million (£286 million) worldwide from an estimated $10 million (£7 million) budget.

Production on the remake was due to begin this summer (16), but with Burger onboard, cameras will now begin rolling in January (17), with a fresh script written by Jon Hartmere, reports Deadline.com.

The film will mark a return to comedy for Cranston, after tackling acclaimed biopics like Trumbo, in which he played blacklisted screenwriter Dalton Trumbo, and All the Way, in which he featured as former U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson. The Breaking Bad actor also recently starred in cartel thriller The Infiltrator as real-life federal agent Robert Mazur, who helped to bring down Colombian drug lord Pablo Escobar's money-laundering organisation in the 1980s.