Steven Spielberg's The Kidnapping Of Edgardo Mortara to star Mark Rylance as Pope Pius IX

The iconic director is set to work once more with his Academy Award-winning star for an adaptation of David Kertzer's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel

It appears Steven Spielberg has a new favourite creative partner; he'll be reteaming with Mark Rylance for a third time on his next project, The Kidnapping of Edgardo Mortara.

Deadline reports an adaptation of Pulitzer Prize-winner David Kertzer's novel, penned by Tony Kushner, is indeed in the works; with Rylance starring as Pope Pius IX. The actor won the Best Supporting Actor Academy Award for Spielberg's Bridge of Spies, and voices the titular giant in the director's upcoming The BFG.

The 1997 novel recounts a notorious incident from the 1850s, in which a young Jewish boy from Bologna, Italy was seized from his family by the Papal States; he was then raised Catholic under the protection of Pope Pius IX, under claims he had been given an emergency baptism when he fell ill as an infant.

With an impressive trailer for The BFG recently dropping on the internet to promise one of Spielberg's classic, sweeping blockbusters; it looks as if the director's on a serious roll as of late, with such an acclaimed stage actor as Rylance adding just an extra touch of gravitas to the proceedings.

Production is set to start in early 2017, for release that winter.