Miramax Films has announced two new pictures - it has signed Marc Forster (Monster's Ball) to direct Neverland, the film of Allan Knee's play The Man Who Was Peter Pan and it has acquired the rights to Paul Watkins' novel The Forger and hired Proof playwright David Auburn to adapt it for the screen.

Neverland was adapted from the play by David Magee and will be produced by Richard Gladstein through his company FilmColony. Gary Binkow will executive produce with Nellie Bellflower of Key Light Entertainment. The film is the story of how James M Barrie's play Peter Pan came to be staged.

Swiss-born Forster made a big impression at the Sundance Film Festival two years ago with his first film Everything Put Together and has won critical acclaim for Monster's Ball which won a Golden Globe nomination for its lead actress Halle Berry.

Laura Ziskin - who is producing the Academy Awards show this year as well as the film of Spiderman - will produce The Forger, a suspense story about a young American art student in Paris in 1939 who gets caught up in a plot to forge renowned paintings. David Auburn won a Tony and a Pulitzer Prize for his play Proof which is being filmed by Hart Sharp Entertainment.