British actors Keira Knightley and Jude Law are to star in a film adaptation of Anna Karenina, it has been announced. Oscar-winning writer Tom Stoppard will pen the script and Atonement film-maker Joe Wright will direct the epic romance, based on Leo Tolstoys novel. Knightley will play Anna, a married woman who has an affair with a younger soldier. Law has landed the role of her husband, Aleksei Karenin. The film, which casts Aaron Johnson as Count Vronsky, is due out next year. Anna Karenina will be Knightleys third collaboration with Wright. She starred in his 2005 film Pride And Prejudice, followed by the Academy Award-winning movie Atonement two years later. James Schamus, from production company Focus Features, said: Joe Wright is a master film-maker, and with Tom Stoppards brilliant screenplay this Anna Karenina will be full of both pageantry and emotion. Focus Features were behind award-winning films such as Brokeback Mountain and Milk. Their current releases include another literary adaptation, Jane Eyre. The company has described Anna Karenina, which is set in late 19th-century Russia, as a powerful tale that explores the capacity for love that surges through the human heart.BBC