Notoriously combative Hollywood film producer Harvey Weinstein has his sights trained on a new target: the American gun lobby.

Weinstein’s latest project will star actress Meryl Streep and will take on the powerful National Rifle Association (NRA).

The film will be called The Senator’s Wife, although as yet there is no writer or director attached to the project. Mr Weinstein said it would be like 1939’s Mr Smith Goes to Washington, which starred James Stewart as a junior senator who heads to the capital to combat political corruption.

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“We’re going to take this issue head-on, and they’re [the NRA] going to wish they weren’t alive after I’m done with them,” Weinstein told Howard Stern’s Sirius XM radio show on Wednesday. The producer, who co-founded Miramax Films and The Weinstein Company, added: “I don’t think we need guns in this country, and I hate it, and I think the NRA is a disaster area.”

The story is believed to focus around the powerful gun lobby’s efforts to combat gun control legislation in the wake of recent mass shootings at Aurora and Newtown. President Barack Obama referred to “intimidation” that led to the bill being defeated.

There was no response from the NRA last night, although supporters took to social media, with some criticising Weinstein for targeting gun owners despite making money from violent films.