Variety reports that James Cameron has tapped Laeta Kalogridis, who is co-writing Battle Angel with him, to write The Dive, the true, tragic love story of freediver Francisco "Pipin" Ferraras and his wife Audrey Mestre.

He plans to direct the film for 20th Century Fox and Lightstorm Entertainment.

The Dive won't be the next directing effort for Cameron, who hasn't helmed a feature since the 1997 Oscar-winning Titanic. Instead, he will next direct a film he's calling Project 880, with speculation rife that it is either Avatar or Battle Angel.

Cameron will shoot that picture in the 3-D technology he has road-tested with such docus as Ghosts Of The Abyss and Aliens of the Deep.

The Dive, which would begin after that project, will tell the story of two pre-eminent free-divers who, with but a breath of air in their lungs, plunged to unimaginable depths before swimming back to the surface. She died during an attempt to better her world record to 557.7 feet.