Film of bestselling novel by David Nicholls is being produced by Nina Jacobson.

Anne Hathaway and Jim Sturgess have been confirmed as the lead actors in One Day, Lone Scherfig’s first film after An Education, which is being backed by Focus Features and sold here by Focus Features International.

The romance is based on the best-selling novel by David Nicholls and has been scripted by Nicholls himself. Former Disney studio chief Nina Jacobson is producing through her Color Force banner. The film was initially optioned and developed by Focus and Random House Films in association with Film4.

Hathaway, who most recently was seen as The White Queen in Tim Burton’s Alice In Wonderland, and Sturgess, who was recently in Peter Weir’s The Way Back, will play play two students who meet on July 15, 1988, on the night of their graduation. She is a working class girl of principle and ambition, he is a wealthy charmer. The two become fast friends and the story follows them every July 15 over the following 20 years as their lives encompass love and loss, heartbreak and success, hopes fulfilled and dreams shattered.

Nicholls’ first novel Starter For Ten was previously made into a film in 2006 directed by Tom Vaughan and starring James McAvoy and Rebecca Hall.