Colin Firth will star in the big screen adaptation of The Picture of Dorian Gray, which began filming in London this week.

The Mamma Mia! actor is portraying Lord Henry Wotton, the aristocrat who tempts Gray into pursuing a hedonistic life, in the high-profile retelling of the Oscar Wilde novel, helmed by St Trinian's director Oliver Parker.

Entitled Dorian Gray, the movie will star Ben Barnes as the handsome young man wishing his portrait would age in his place. The 26-year-old actor is currently melting the hearts of teenage girls everywhere as Prince Caspian in the latest adaptation of CS Lewis's Narnia novels.

Parker plans to make "a visceral, dark horror story" with stardom as one of the themes, the film's producer, Barnaby Thompson, told The Hollywood Reporter.

The Picture of Dorian Gray has been adapted more than a dozen times for the silver screen. Five movies were made between 1913 and 1917 alone, including a Hungarian version starring horror actor Bela Lugosi as Wotton. The latest version dates from two years ago and brought the story in a modern-day setting.

Firth has a packed diary these days. He is currently out in cinemas with the hit ABBA musical Mamma Mia!, and recently completed filming on Easy Virtue, a romantic comedy based on a Noel Coward play, on which he worked with his Dorian Gray co-star Barnes.

Firth also features in Michael Winterbottom's forthcoming Genova, in which he plays a widower trying to cope in the aftermath of his wife's death. He is also due to appear in Antonia Bird's The Meat Trade opposite Robert Carlyle, in which he will play a body snatcher.