Matt Damon and John Krasinski have collaborated in the past, co-writing and starring in Promised Land and producing Manchester By The Sea. They're teaming back up for The King Of Oil, which currently has Damon in line to star.

Like Promised Land, this has its roots in truth, though will hew much closer to the events, based on Daniel Armmann's biography of fugitive billionaire commodities trader Marc Rich.

A child of the Holocaust, Rich set out to live up to his surname, becoming one of the wealthiest and most powerful oil commodities traders in the 1960s and 70s until he was indicted in 1983 on 65 criminal counts including tax evasion. Along the way, he had illegal dealings with the Cuban, Israeli and US governments, but avoided prosecution because he was living in Switzerland when the charges were filed.

Even more controversially, Rich got a pardon from President Bill Clinton when the latter was leaving the White House in 2001. Rich died in Switzerland at the age of 78 in 2013.

With Joe Shrapnel and Anna Waterhouse adapting the book, Damon is looking to star as Rich, while Krasinski is producing through his Sunday Night Productions company and weighing whether he might direct – though Deadline cautions that he's nowhere near a final decision.