British theater and film director John Crowley has signed on to direct the drama The Dogs of Babel for Mandate Pictures, according to Variety.

We Are Marshall writer Jamie Linden will adapt the bestselling novel, which centers on a linguistics professor who returns home one day to find his wife dead in their backyard. In an effort to uncover what happened, he attempts to teach the couple's dog - the only witness to her death - to talk.

No production date has been set.