Twin towers heroes are inspiration for Hollywood's new releases Â

Hollywood's most overtly political couple, Susan Sarandon and Tim Robbins, are to make a film about the 11 September terrorist attacks.

Robbins is to write and direct All The Heroes Are Dead and Sarandon is expected to take a lead role. The film is based on the real-life love story of a New York couple, recounted in an article for New Yorker magazine weeks after the attacks.

Sarandon will play Susan Greer, a woman whose partner, Rick Rescorla, dies trying to save colleagues from the World Trade Centre attack. The movie industry bible, Variety, reported yesterday that negotiations with a number of Hollywood studios were going on. Sarandon's arthouse appeal and Robbins' directorial track record mean a production deal could be signed shortly.

Robbins and Sarandon are regarded as Hollywood's premier arthouse couple, whose films together are generally out of the mainstream, even if they appear in more populist movies separately.

A movie about the World Trade Centre attacks might not immediately seem their sort of project but the couple are understood to have been struck by the individual tale of heroism set against the background of a terrorist attack.

Rick Rescorla was born in Cornwall but, at the age of 23, moved to the United States and served with distinction in the Vietnam War. He was head of security at Morgan Stanley Dean Witter in the south tower and died evacuating employees when the building collapsed.

Two other films based around 11 September are also being planned. One of these will also be based on a New Yorker article about the disaster, though not the article that Robbins and Sarandon will be using as the basis for their project.

The third will be based on the book Report from Ground Zero, which tells the story from the perspective of the first rescuers on the scene. The author of that book, Dennis Smith, is a retired firefighter and spent 50 days working as part of the recovery team.