In a story from Production Weekly, Tom Hanks, Halle Berry, James McAvoy, Ian McKellen and Natalie Portman have all been offered roles in Cloud Atlas.

The film is being directed by Tom Tykwer (The International). He is presently writing the screenplay. It is based on the book by David Mitchell. The plan is for the film to go into production next spring.

Cloud Atlas intertwines history, science, suspense, humor and pathos through six separate but loosely related narratives. Each of theses narratives takes place in a different time and place, each is written in a very different prose style, and each is broken off mid-action and brought to conclusion in the second half of the book.

There isn't any word yet on which actor will tackle what role but as usual, when we know we will be sure to post that information.