Jacques Audiard’s English-language debut will be a western set during the California gold rush starring John C Reilly, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

The director is working on an adaptation of The Sisters Brothers by Canadian author Patrick deWitt. The book tells the story of Eli and Charlie Sisters, two hitmen on the trail of a prospector who has stolen from their boss. Reilly’s production company optioned the Man Booker prize-shortlisted book.

The film will be Audiard’s first in English, following festival hits including The Beat That My Heart Skipped, Un Prophète and Rust and Bone. His latest film, Dheepan, which follows a former Tamil Tiger fighter trying to start a new life in the suburbs of Paris, won the Palme d’Or at this year’s Cannes film festival.

The Sisters Brothers was met with mixed reviews upon publication in the UK. The Independent enjoyed the genre-bending author’s “wry playfulness”, the Telegraph praised deWitt’s “devastating sense of confidence and glittering prose”, but it failed to shine for Guardian reviewer Jane Smiley.

“You aren’t a passenger, you don’t care about that destination, and the whole train rumbles on without you,” she wrote.