Sam Riley has signed on to portray British playwright Christopher "Kit" Marlowe in A Dead Man in Deptford, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

The cast also includes James Purefoy, Ray Winstone, Ed Speleers and Adam Sinclair.

Adapted by Michael Elias from Anthony Burgess' novel, A Dead Man in Deptford will be directed by Nick Copus for Ballpark Prods. and Neversink Prods.

The movie will play with the idea that Christopher "Kit" Marlowe, a notorious bar room brawler, was also a royal spy for Elizabeth I and that his death in Deptford at age 29 may have been an assassination ordered by the English Secret Service.

Production is scheduled to begin in the spring.