By one of those weird coincidences that seem almost commonplace in Hollywood, two competing biopics of writer Truman Capote are going into production at the same time. In the first (as yet untitled), based on Gerald Clarke's 1988 biography and directed by Bennett Miller, Philip Seymour Hoffman takes the role of the New Orleans-born author. Meanwhile, in Douglas McGrath's Every Word Is True, English actor Toby Jones (best known as the voice of Dobby the House Elf in Harry Potter) plays Capote.

Both films focus intently on Capote's relationship with Perry Smith and Dick Hickcock, the drifters responsible for the killing of the Clutter family on a farm in Holcomb, Kansas, in 1959. Capote befriended the two murderers while researching and writing his 1966 classic, In Cold Blood.

There has been a scramble for roles in the two films. McGrath has enlisted Sandra Bullock to play Capote's childhood friend (and author of To Kill a Mockingbird) Harper Lee. Mark Ruffalo, Ashley Judd, Gwyneth Paltrow and Sigourney Weaver are also in the cast. Miller, meanwhile, has recruited such redoubtable character actors as Chris Cooper, Catherine Keener and Bob Balaban.

Capote, who died in 1984, might not have approved of the new films: he didn't think much of Hollywood's tampering with his work. He disapproved of Paramount's decision to cast Audrey Hepburn as Holly Golightly in Breakfast at Tiffany's (he thought the role should have gone to Marilyn Monroe). Nor was he entirely impressed with Richard Brooks's version of In Cold Blood. Still, one prediction can be made safely enough: even if both movies flop, Capote's book sales are bound to benefit.