Naomi Watts to play Diana in final years

NAOMI Watts will play Diana, Princess of Wales, in one of at least three films about her in development.

Naomi Watts

NAOMI Watts will play Diana, Princess of Wales, in one of at least three films about her in development.

Caught in Flight appears to be the most advanced after the producers announced their lead actress yesterday at the Berlin Film Festival and said that they would start shooting in Britain this year.

The film will be directed by German filmmaker Oliver Hirschbiegel, who launched endless internet parodies when he made the Oscar-nominated film Downfall about Adolf Hitler's last stand in his Berlin bunker.

According to the producers, Ecosse Films, Caught in Flight will offer "a compelling portrait of Diana, Princess of Wales, during the last two years of her life".

"It charts how finding true personal happiness for the first time allowed her to achieve her defining successes, evolving into a major international campaigner and humanitarian," they said.

Previous reports suggested that it would portray her in an unflattering light, as a "damaged woman" who stalked the lover who eventually spurned her.

US actress Jessica Chastain was pencilled in to play Diana and the film was set to concentrate not on the princess's final romance with Dodi Fayed but on her earlier secret love affair with heart surgeon Hasnat Khan.

Other Diana projects include a film based on her bodyguard Ken Wharfe's memoirs and a film to which Keira Knightley and Scarlett Johansson have been linked.

Watts, the only actress who at this stage is definitely playing Diana, said: "It is such an honour to be able to play this iconic role.

"Princess Diana was loved across the world, and I look forward to rising to the challenge of playing her on screen."