Kevin Spacey and Colin Firth are attached to star in an adaptation of George Orwell’s Homage to Catalonia, a story I’m happy to report, both because it’s an awesome book and because Variety couldn’t even get the GD title right.

“Catalonia” revolves around the real-life story of how Orwell and his wife Eileen traveled to Barcelona to fight Stalinism. There, Orwell joined the Anarchist brigade and fought in the Spanish Civil War. Film will highlight the relationship between Orwell and Georges Kopp, the charismatic commander of the brigade. [Variety]

(*buzzer sound*) Sorry, thanks for playing!  What the non-fiction book is actually about, which TWO Variety reporters apparently couldn’t be bothered to get right, was Orwell traveling to Barcelona to fight Francisco Franco’s Fascists, at which point he joined (partly by chance) the POUM, an anti-Stalinist militia (Spain was kind of a cluster F at the time). Later, he got shot in the throat by a sniper and almost died.  He originally had a hard time getting the book published, as it was equally critical of the Fascists and the Communists. And I’m sure the process of getting a movie version greenlit wasn’t any easier, as exec after exec opened the book, looked confused for a second and asked, “Uh… Where’s the pictures?”