Director Roger Michell has just finished filming the best seller Enduring Love. But he still regrets not finishing his Captain Corelli project, he tells Steve Pratt.

IT WAS no accident that Hugh Grant was reading the novel Captain Corelli's Mandolin in the final scene of the British comedy film Notting Hill.

The choice of book was a little joke by director Roger Michell, whose next project was going to be a film based on the best selling book.

"Notting Hill was really a trailer for Captain Corelli's Mandolin," jokes the director, whose CV contains a number of literary adaptations by writers as diverse as Hanif Kureishi and Jane Austen.

He's not planned it that way, passing on comments made by novelist Ian McEwan to explain the attraction of books to film-makers. "He suggested that a novel is extremely complicated and full of all kinds of richness, which doesn't often occur in screenplays," says Michell.

"Those tend to be written much more quickly and are more formatted, and by writers who don't consider themselves to be proper writers but are on their way to being producers and directors. A novel gives you more depth and intensity."

McEwan's book was the basis for Michell's latest movie, Enduring Love, now released on DVD. Seven or eight years have passed since he read the novel. He went off and made several other movies - The Mother and Changing Lanes - while the project was being developed.

"I found this a very attractive prospect, partly because of the material and partly because of it being a thriller with ideas, which is the holy grail of thrillers," he says.

"The adaptation took ages because it's a very hard book to adapt. The film is not, by any means, a slavish account of the book. We had to change quite a lot of thing but bring the spirit and point of the book to the screen."

McEwan didn't adapt his own work, but Michell was keen for his approval. He was sent drafts of the screenplay for comments, some of which were taken up and others discarded. "The big joy was when he came to see the film in the cutting room and got it and saw what we were trying to do," says the director.

The story finds two strangers (played by Daniel Craig and Rhys Ifans) drawn together after witnessing an accident involving a runaway hot air balloon in the English countryside.

One of the major dilemmas facing the film-makers was the scene involving the balloon, which is regarded by many as one of the best first chapters ever written.

"I just worked incredibly hard to make that opening vivid. We devoted two weeks of a ten-week schedule, and probably ten per cent of the budget, to that scene," he recalls.

Several of the books Michell has filmed have been favourites, such as Jane Austen's Persuasion and his next project, a US studio-backed movie of Huckleberry Finn. He's moved easily between Hollywood and Britain, combining low budget dramas like The Mother with mainstream American films like road rage drama Changing Lanes with Samuel L Jackson and Ben Affleck.

A permanent move across the Atlantic doesn't figure in his plans, just as the quality of Hollywood scripts leaves much to be desired in his eyes. "It's pretty hard to find chunky, mainstream scripts. And I live in London and my kids are here. It's quite tough to think of going away for six months to make a film," he says.

Illness caused Michell to hand over the director's reins on Captain Corelli's Mandolin to someone else. The movie was not a big hit but he still wishes he'd had the chance to do the picture. "That's my favourite book of all time," he says.

"I remember going on a recce to Catalonia and was at Gatwick Airport at five in the morning before the flight. The girl behind the counter saw the book and started saying how wonderful it was. In a way I still miss the film that I would have made."

Michell tries to direct a stage play each year. His last was a revival of Harold Pinter's Old Times, with Gina McKee and Jeremy Northam, at London's Donmar Warehouse.

A return to TV, where his work has included The Buddha Of Suburbia, is less likely. "It's harder and harder to do really interesting drama on TV. It feels terribly generic," he says.

"If I did TV, I would probably want to go and make another documentary. I've done two Omnibus films about actors, and would love to make another."

His film The Mother, about an elderly widow having an affair with her daughter's hunky builder, was made for BBC Films with Anne Reid and Daniel Craig in leading roles. Michell made it for the cinema but is aware that movies have long lives on TV and DVD these days. "The DVD revenue is so enormous. With a Hollywood film, it will double the amount of money taken," he says.

"When The Mother was shown on the BBC at some inappropriate time over Christmas, three million people watched it. That's incredible. If you translated it into box-office revenue, that's a £20m opening weekend."

l Enduring Love (18) is available to buy on Pathe Distribution.

Published: ??/??/2004