Hugh Jackman and Lee Daniels are working on a movie about the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr.

The pair previously tried to pull together funding for civil rights movie 'Selma' two years ago, but following on from its failure they have set their sights on a project about the esteemed campaigner.

Millennium Films will produce and finance the film, although a distributor has not been confirmed.

The movie will tell the tale of William Pepper - played by Jackman - an attorney who argued Martin's killer James Earl Ray did not shoot him.

It will follow his one-man campaign to build support for his theory and is based on Pepper's own book.

Hanna Weg is adapting the novel to a screenplay.

Hugh was last seen in robot fighting movie 'Real Steel' and has been filming a number of projects recently.

Among them is Tom Hooper's 'Les Miserables' musical - in which he plays lead character Jean Valjean alongside Anne Hathaway, Amanda Seyfried and Russell Crowe - and ensemble comedy 'Butter' alongside Jennifer Garner and Alicia Silverstone.