Fight Club director David Fincher looks set to direct the long-awaited big screen adaptation of F Scott Fitzgerald's short story The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.

The former music video director, whose stock rose dramatically when his version of Chuck Palahniuk's pugilistic tale became a cult hit five years ago, has signed a three-month "holding" deal to shoot the project, according to the Hollywood Reporter.

Fitzgerald's Benjamin Button tells the story of a 50-year-old man who begins ageing backwards, eventually falling in love with a woman 20 years his junior.

Over the years directors such as Spike Jonze, Ron Howard, Gary Ross and Phil Alden Robinson have all expressed interest in directing the film, which is being made by Warner Bros and Paramount.

Fincher himself is currently working as executive producer on skateboard movie The Lords of Dogtown. The main obstacle to his eventual involvement could be his interest in taking control of a number of other projects, including a film about the so-called Zodiac Killer, a man believed to be responsible for a number of murders in San Francisco in the 1960s and 1970s.