Los Angeles -- Taiwanese-born filmmaker Ang Lee is in talks to direct the big-screen adaptation of Yann Martel's popular novel "Life of Pi," Variety.com reported.

Lee won an Oscar for directing "Brokeback Mountain." His other movies include "The Ice Storm," "Sense and Sensibility," "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" and "Lust, Caution."

"Pi," a Man Booker Prize winner, is about the lone survivor of a sunken freighter who finds himself sharing a lifeboat with a hyena, an injured zebra, an orangutan and a hungry Bengal tiger.

Fox 2000 is expected to hire a new writer to pen a "Pi" script, which Lee would oversee should he take the directing job, Variety.com said.

Copyright 2009 by United Press International.