Filmmakers have bought the rights to make a movie about the life of physicist Albert Einstein.

Lionsgate gained the rights after it was given permission to look at Einstein's papers and personal letters from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and now the studio wants to make a film about the Nobel Prize winner.

The film will centre around Einstein's years as a physicist and mathematician and will be based loosely on Einstein: His Life and Universe, a biography by Walter Isaacson, who will also act as a private consultant for the movie.