Tom Hanks for Nora Ephron-penned Broadway play 'Lucky Guy'

Tom Hanks has signed up to star in a new Broadway play written by the late Nora Ephron.

The playwright had been working on Lucky Guy in the years leading up to her death in June.



Hanks will make his Broadway debut as the New York tabloid columnist Mike McAlary in the world premiere of the play in March 2013.

The Forrest Gump actor - who worked with Ephron on her movies Sleepless in Seattle and You've Got Mail - had already been in negotiations for the project at the time of her death.

Ephron had been developing Lucky Guy as a movie, before adapting it for the stage.

Mike McAlary was a hugely popular tabloid writer in New York City, and died in 1998 from colon cancer. His top stories included police corruption scandals in the 1980s and 1990s, winning the 1998 Pulitzer Prize for commentary.

Producers have described the play as being about "the scandal and graffiti-ridden New York of the 1980s, as told through the story of the charismatic and controversial tabloid columnist Mike McAlary".

Tony Award-winner George C Wolfe (Angels in America) will direct the play, which will run at the Broadhurst Theater with preview shows from March. Opening night is scheduled for April 1.