Psycho star Douglas Henshall is developing a £15m film based on Christopher Brookmyre's novel One Fine Day In The Middle Of The Night.

He and co-producer Miranda Robinson have been given a grant by the Scottish Film Council to develop the project, for which they are hoping to recruit an all-star cast of Scottish actors.

Henshall, who will also star in the film, declined to name which stars were on his wish list. But he and Robinson will be aiming for the premier league -- Robert Carlyle, Billy Connolly, Dougray Scott, Sean Connery and Ewan McGregor.

In Brookmyre's book, published in 1999, murder and mayhem erupt during a school reunion on board -- of all places -- a disused oil rig. The book opens with retired police Inspector Hector McGregor being knocked unconscious by a severed arm sailing through the air.

The trouble begins when Gavin Hutchison, a former pupil of St Michael's school in Auchinlea, decides to invite his old classmates to a reunion. It's a perfect chance for him to show off his wealth and his new oil rig hotel and leisure complex. But his unhappy wife decides to spoil the celebrations by inviting the two classmates he doesn't want to see -- comedian Matt Black and psycho David Murdoch. Things go really wrong when a gang of terrorists, intent on putting the frighteners on Hutchison, storm the rig.

Brookmyre's plot takes its cue from Hollywood action movies, and Henshall said he needed to raise £10m to £15m to make the film. 'I think it's a big movie. You can't make it properly for £5m. I don't see any point in trying to do it if you set it in a studio. I want all the toys.'

He is currently investigating suitable locations, one of which could be the Cromarty Firth.

One Fine Day is Henshall's first foray into production. He began thinking about making the film two years ago, when Brookmyre sent him a copy of the novel. 'Christopher sent me a proof copy of it quite a while ago -- not as a pitch, just because he thought I might enjoy it. He read somewhere that I was from Barrhead and a St Mirren supporter, and he's from Barrhead and a St Mirren supporter. I thought, 'Why the hell not?' I met him in London and threw some ideas at him which he was very positive about, and he let me have the rights for the book.'

Henshall has now set up a production company, Deep Blue River Films, and he and Robinson are busy developing the script and trying to raise money. They have recruited Julian Simpson to adapt Brookmyre's book for the screen. Simpson wrote and directed The Criminal, a story about a musician plunged into a world of femmes fatales, espionage and state-ordered executions, which was released in 2000 and starred Eddie Izzard and Steven Mackintosh, who appears in Channel 4's new drama Swallow.

Explaining his decision to set up a production company, Henshall said: 'It's not that I was looking for big vehicles for moi, I just wanted to make films I wanted to see.'

Henshall started his career in the theatre, performing in The Life Of Stuff at London's Donmar Warehouse and with Scottish troupe 7:84. He played one of the four leading roles in Peter Mullan's 1997 film Orphans -- and two years later, despite claiming: 'I can't imagine too many women will find a small, overweight, red-haired Glaswegian attractive,' he gathered a host of female fans and critical accolades by playing Danny Nash, a psychiatric doctor working at a Glasgow hospital, in the Channel 4 drama Psychos.

Brookmyre's debut novel Quite Ugly One Morning was published in 1996 . His style knowingly draws on Hollywood blockbusters, with references to Die Hard, Commando and True Lies peppering One Fine Day.