Sir Anthony Hopkins is to play Leo Tolstoy, opposite Meryl Streep as the writer’s wronged wife, in a major new film.

The Last Station is the tale of Tolstoy’s life, a story so tortured it could have come from the pages of War and Peace.

The Anglo-German co-production is one of nine films about writers – including Pushkin, Dickens, Molière, Keats, Austen, the Brontës and Dylan Thomas – that are being promoted at the Cannes Film Festival.

The high number of such films signals an insatiable appetite from actors and investors for screen dramas about literary icons after the success of movies such as Miss Potter, starring Renée Zellweger as Beatrix Potter.

Just five years ago, no one was interested, one producer said.

Streep, an Oscar-winner whose films include The Deer Hunterand Sophie’s Choice, will play Tolstoy’s wife, an intelligent woman who is thought to have had a strong editing influence on War and Peace but who eventually inspired only brutal disgust from her husband.

Tony Briggs, a Tolstoy specialist and the author of a new translation of War and Peace, said: “Tolstoy and his wife is a sensational story. They began as happy honeymooners, but their marriage went on a downward spiral.”

Sir Anthony, 69, who was once described by Lord Attenborough as “unquestionably the greatest actor of his generation”, won an Oscar as the cannibal Hannibal Lecter in The Silence of the Lambs in 1991 before going on to reveal his dramatic range with films such as Howards End, Shadowlands and The Remains of the Day.

Since 1998, he has spoken at least three times of wanting to retire, expressing concern that so much of his life has been “wasted” in filming.

Last month he touched again on the subject, reportedly saying: “I’m beginning to think that sitting in a damp trailer in the middle of a field somewhere is not the best way to spend my time.”

The chance to play a writer enticed him, Chris Curling, the film’s British producer, told The Times.

Professor Briggs, Emeritus Professor at Birmingham University, described Sir Anthony as perfect for the role because of his powerful portrayal of Pierre in War and Peace, a BBC adaptation 25 years ago.

“It was the best role he ever did,” he said. “He’d be tremendous for Tolstoy.” There are parallels between Pierre – bumbling, spiritually open, trying to find meaning in everyone – and Tolstoy’s own character, he explained.

And Sir Anthony will bring out yet another side to him.

The film has a budget of about £10 million, and is likely to begin shooting next year.

Tolstoy’s descendants have given their blessing to the film and will allow filming to take place in Yasnaya Polyana, Tolstoy’s estate 100 miles south of Moscow. The author was born there in 1828 and, after his marriage to Sofia (Sonya) Behrs in 1862, returned and lived there for another 48 years.

Fact or fiction?

Charles Dickens BBC Films is making The Invisible Woman, which focuses on his secret 13-year love affair with a younger woman

John Keats the New Zealand director Jane Campion is to shoot Bright Star in Britain. It is the story of his unhappy romance with Fanny Brawne

The Brontës Michelle Williams, Bryce Dallas Howard and Evan Rachel Wood have been cast as Charlotte, Emily and Anne

Alexander Pushkin a Russian production about the author of Eugene Onegin who died in a duel Molière a fictionalised account of the mysterious “lost months” in the life of the writer of The Misanthrope

Jane Austen Becoming Jane starred Anne Hathaway in the title role

Dylan Thomas one of two rival productions includes a BBC Films film starring Michael Sheen

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