Christian Bale and Hugh Jackman are in talks to star in Touchstone Pictures' The Prestige, The Hollywood Reporter reveals.

The pair will portray two rival magicians seeking each other's trade secrets in turn-of-the-century London. So deep is their rivalry that it drives them to murder.

The project will reunite Bale with Christopher Nolan, with whom he worked in Batman Begins. The director's brother, Jonathan, adapted the screenplay from Christopher Priest's 1996 novel of the same name.

Jonathan Nolan was also responsible for the short story on which his brother's Memento was based.