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London-based Working Title has optioned The History Keepers, a new children’s novel due to be published by Random House Children’s Books in the UK this fall. It’s being pitched as “Harry Potter meets Doctor Who.” Actor-turned-screenwriter Damian Dibben’s debut novel follows a boy whose parents have been kidnapped not only to another part of the world but another time completely. Fourteen-year-old Jake Djones must travel backwards and forwards in time from present-day London to 19th century France and 16th century Venice trying to find his mum and dad. Dibben’s agent Jo Unwin of Conville & Walsh tells me U.S. rights publishing rights are still under auction. Tim Bevan and Eric Fellner will produce for Working Title, the UK’s most successful film company (Notting Hill, Bridget Jones’s Diary). Rachel Holroyd of Casarotto Ramsay Associates negotiated the film deal. Random House bought The History Keepers...

Can suicide bombers be funny? Chris Morris thinks so. As he releases his first feature film, he gives a rare interview to Xan Brooks

Two men sit shoulder-to-shoulder against a bright white wall. They are young and cheerful, at ease in each other's company. They clown around, try a hat on for size and direct dopey grins at the camera. The prevailing mood is one of jollity, and yet what we are witnessing are the rushes from a martyrdom video, shot at Osama bin Laden's farmhouse in January 2000. The man on the right is Mohamed Atta, ringleader of the 11 September hijackers. His buddy on the left is Ziad Jarrah, who piloted the United 93 flight that came down in a Pennsylvania cornfield, killing everyone on board.

Fast-forward a decade. Chris Morris and I are sitting shoulder-to-shoulder in a London production office, staring at the screen of a scuffed white laptop.