It was a story with the humblest of beginnings, the tale of one man’s road to recovery from homelessness and addiction with a stray feline friend by his side.

Now, the bestselling autobiography of James Bowen, detailing his life busking on the streets of Covent Garden with a ginger cat called Bob, is to be realised on the big screen.

Filming for the adaptation of Bowen’s first book, A Street Cat Named Bob: And How He Saved My Life, is due to begin in October. British actor Luke Treadaway, who won an Olivier award for his role in the stage version of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, will play the lead role – though casting for Bob has yet to be announced.

The story of Bowen and his cat became a hit when it was published in 2012, spending 76 weeks at the top of the Sunday Times bestseller list in the UK – a feat achieved by only 10 books since records began – and has since been translated into 30 languages. The screenplay has been adapted by British writer Tim John, while Roger Spottiswoode, the director of Tomorrow Never Dies, will be at the helm of the project.

“I am incredibly moved that mine and Bob’s story is going to be made into a film,” said Bowen. “It’s quite surreal really, but Bob is extremely excited, as am I.”

The book, which was written with Gary Jenkins, begins in 2007, when Bowen was attempting to overcome his heroin addiction through a methadone programme and living in sheltered accommodation in Tottenham. He came home one night after busking to find a dishevelled ginger cat in his hallway with an infected leg, and took it to the vet for treatment.

The cat began following him round and, after concluding he was a stray, Bowen named him Bob, after Killer Bob from the TV series Twin Peaks. The unlikely pair began travelling together on the bus to Covent Garden and Piccadilly, where Bowen would busk with his guitar, and soon became something of a phenomenon as tourists and onlookers uploaded videos to the internet.

His bond with Bob also encouraged Bowen to slowly withdraw from using methadone and beat his addiction, later crediting the cat as giving him “the determination to knuckle down and get over it. Using drugs is a selfish thing; Bob gave me something else to focus on.”

After their story was published in a local newspaper, Bowen was offered a book deal in 2010, and has since published six bestsellers detailing his life and travels with his ginger cat. Bob has also become something of a celebrity in his own right, receiving the most fan mail of any Hachette author and boasting 72,000 followers on Twitter.

In an interview with the Guardian, Bowen suggested that Bob could play himself in the film: “Who else could play him? He’s such a character.” The casting of Treadaway in the film got the seal of approval from Bob’s official Twitter account with the tweet: “At last, it’s official. Luke Treadaway is the perfect James.”

As well as writing his six books, Bowen recently successfully crowdfunded more than £150,000 to open a cat cafe called Bob’s World which will become “a home for homeless, abused or unwanted cats”. He has yet to find a venue but hopes the place will provide company for “other like-minded individuals to come in and have tea, coffee and refreshments whilst being surrounded by cats”.