In the wake of The Queen, another film about theBritish Royal Family is in the pipeline. In London this week with MartinScorsese's $120m The Departed (whichhe produced for Warner Bros), Initial Entertainment Group producer Graham Kinghas revealed that he is planning a new feature about the early years of QueenVictoria.

"Julian Fellowes has writtenan amazing script for me. It is something that has never really been told,"King told ScreenDaily.com of theproject, billed as love story.

The Queen Victoria projectisn't the only British-themed feature that King is developing. Under his first-lookproducing deal with Warner Bros, King last year optioned Nick Hornby's comicnovel about suicidal strangers who meet on New Year's Eve, A Long Way Down. Writer DV DeVincentis, who also worked on High Fidelity, is now writing thescreenplay.

Meanwhile, having workedwith Scorsese on Gangs OfNew York, The Aviator and The Departed, King is planning a fourthfeature with the American maestro. Silence,an adaptation of the novel by Japanese writer Shusaku Endo, is likely to shootin Vancouver next summer. This is a long-gestating project forScorsese, who together with Jay Cocks wrote a first draft of a screenplay arounda decade ago.

"Then over last Christmas,they went into a hotel room for two weeks and didn't leave that room and cameout with this fabulous piece of material," said King, who is currently puttingcast and financing together.

The Initial boss acknowledgedthat no replacement is yet lined up for Peter Weir, who recently quit asdirector of Shantaram. King andJohnny Depp are producing that project for Warner Bros with Depp to play thelead as an Australian heroin addict who ends up fighting Soviet troops in Afghanistan.

"We're talking to a fewdirectors right now. It's very unfortunate about Peter. He's truly one of thebest filmmakers that there is. He just had a vision of the movie which wasn'tmine and Johnny's," King noted.

King said he is looking tobring Shantaram to a UK studio, possibly Leavesden.

The Initial boss alsocommented on the growing controversy surrounding Ed Zwick's new feature The Blood Diamond, which Warner Broswill release at the end of the year. The film, which stars Leonardo DiCaprioand was produced by King, is set against the backdrop of the bloody civil warin Sierra Leonein the 1990s. It has already prompted the diamond industry to launch a campaigndefending its practices.

"The diamond industry is verynervous about what we have here," King said. "But we're not doing this to pissoff the diamond industry - we are doing it to show there is a right way andwrong way to make diamonds and have diamonds delivered."

King confirmed that he islooking for a Sundance slot for Kevin Connolly's debut feature Gardener Of Eden,which Initial and Leonardo DiCaprio's Appian Way recentlyproduced together.

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