Tom Hanks to work with Coen Brothers

Tom Hanks is to star in a new film from the Coen Brothers.

Hanks will star in The Ladykillers, an updated version of the 1955 Ealing comedy that starred Alec Guinness and Peter Sellers.

The film will be set in America's South and is about an old landlady who rents rooms to a group of thieves looking to use her house as a hideout. They then unsuccessfully try to get rid of her.

Hanks will also work with director Robert Zemeckis on Polar Express which is about a boy whose friends don't believe in Father Christmas.

On Christmas Eve he's woken up by a steam train which takes him and his friends to the North Pole.

Hanks will play the train's philosophising conductor.

He is expected to make Polar Express first before moving on to The Ladykillers reports www.variety.com.