Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet will reunite on screen for the first time since they portrayed star-crossed lovers in the 1997 blockbuster Titanic.

Director Sam Mendes, Winslet's husband, will direct Revolutionary Road, based on a 1961 novel by Richard Yates. Mendes won a directing Oscar for the 1999 film American Beauty starring Kevin Spacey.

Leonardo DiCaprio, seen here at a September 2006 movie premiere in New York, will pair up with his Titanic co-star Kate Winslet for a movie to be directed by her husband, Sam Mendes.
(Stephen Chernin/Associated Press)

The novel, named one of the top 100 books of all time by Time magazine, centres on a suburban couple who struggle between their everyday domesticity and their aspirations of a life filled with art and glamour.

Titanic, directed by Canadian James Cameron, helped launch the careers of DiCaprio and Winslet, who now command millions for their work. DiCaprio played a working-class character who falls in love with socialite Winslet while aboard the doomed ocean liner, which sank in the North Atlantic in 1912.

It is still the highest-grossing movie of all time, garnering more than $1.8 billion US in global ticket sales.

Both actors have done well since their pairing a decade ago. They were nominated for Oscars this year, DiCaprio for Blood Diamond and Winslet for Little Children. They lost out to Forest Whitaker and Helen Mirren, respectively.

The film, which is being produced by BBC Films in association with DreamWorks, is due to begin shooting this summer.

"We could not be more delighted at the way this film has come together. This is an extraordinary story with wide international appeal and resonance," David Thompson, head of BBC Films, told BBC News.