Director Deepa Mehta and British author Salman Rushdie will collaborate on an adaptation of Rushdie’s novel Midnight’s Children. Mehta’s longtime producing partner David Hamilton says the duo will start working on the script in March, with an April deadline, adding that he is in discussions with two studios, both of which have expressed interest.

Published in 1981, Midnight’s Children won the Booker Prize for that year and shot Rushdie to the forefront of the international literary establishment. It follows a man born at the stroke of midnight on Aug. 15, 1947, when India became independent, who shares an odd link with the country and others born on that day.

Rushdie wrote a television adaptation in the 1990s that was to be filmed in Sri Lanka, but the production was shut down by the local government. Mehta shot her 2005 movie Water in Sri Lanka after its original shoot was shut down by protests in India.

Hamilton says he and Mehta had dinner with Rushdie in Toronto. ‘They realized they had a lot in common,’ he says. He predicts a 2010 start date for production, given Hamilton-Mehta Productions’ commitment to the $35-million Komagata Maru project with the working title Exclusion. He expects to start shooting that film in 2009.

Two of Mehta’s on-screen collaborators have signed on for roles, Shabana Azmi and Nandita Das, both of whom appeared in Mehta’s 1996 film Fire and 1998’s Earth. As well, Rushdie plans to take a small role as a fortuneteller.