Odyssey Entertainment is to handle worldwide sales on PG Wodehouse adaptation Piccadilly Jim for the UK's Mission Pictures, the companies announced on Wednesday.

The period comedy of manners and mistaken identity sees Crush director John McKay directing a cast including Sam Rockwell from a script by Oscar winning screenwriter Julian Fellowes.

Rockwell is taking the title role of Jim Crocker, while Tom Wilkinson is expected to play his father, Bingley. Mission is producing, with production to start in autumn 2003.

"It's a great story and the casting of Sam Rockwell is inspired," said Odyssey's Ralph Kamp and Louise Goodsill.

Crocker is an American hedonist who is a liability to his scheming step-mother Eugenia's social climbing in London. Determined not to let Jim ruin her plans, Eugenia prompts her sister Nesta to take him back to New York. Jim disguises himself as someone else, falls in love and attempts to change his ways.

"Julian Fellowes was the perfect writer to adapt this PG Wodehouse classic and his work, along with John McKay's sensibility, has certainly been a major factor in attracting Sam," said Mission co-founder Andrew Hauptman.