Imagine Entertainment has hired screenwriter Noah Oppenheim (The Secret Life of Houdini) to adapt George Orwell's classic novel 1984.

We reported back in March that Imagine acquired the rights to the novel, which follows Winston Smith, a man who works at the Ministry of Truth, literally rewriting history as it unfolds. He tries to rebel against this totalitarian society, and the all-seeing Big Brother, by falling in love, which is strictly forbidden.

Ron Howard, Brian Grazer, and Julie Yorn are producing for Imagine Entertainment, although a director has not been attached yet. The novel was adapted, fittingly, back in 1984 with Nineteen Eighty-Four, which starred John Hurt as the protagonist Winston Smith.

No production schedule was given for this new adaptation.