Just in: Sacha Baron Cohen will be back on the big screen next year.

Paramount Pictures announced Cohen's new comedy, The Dictator, will be released worldwide on May 11, 2012. The studio also announced that Larry Charles (Borat, Bruno) has come aboard to direct, reports USA TODAY's Susan Wloszczyna.

The film, inspired by the novel Zabibah and The King by Saddam Hussein, tells the story of a dictator who risked his life to ensure that democracy would never come to his country. Producing alongside Baron Cohen are Scott Rudin, Alec Berg, Jeff Schaffer, and David Mandel.

According to The Guardian, Zabibah and the King was published anonymously in 2000, and promised that royalties would go "to the poor, the orphans, the miserable, the needy." It is widely accepted within Iraq that the book was authored by Saddam, although the CIA later concluded that it was probably produced by ghost writers, acting under direct instruction from the Iraqi leader.