Michael and Steve McQueen will be cementing their already strong actor-director partnership on McQueen’s next movie, “Twelve Years a Slave.”

It's a tough movie based on the true story of Solomon Northrup, a New Yorker who, while visiting Washington in 1841, was kidnapped into slavery. He was rescued from a Louisiana cotton plantation a dozen years later.

McQueen wrote the script with John Ridley. Plan B's Dede Gardner and Jeremy Kleiner are set to produce the film, which is expected to start production early next year. CAA is arranging financing for the pic and representing U.S. rights.