Sofia Coppola has a reservation at one of Hollywood's most famous – some might say infamous – landmarks: she will write and direct the comedy drama Somewhere, with Stephen Dorff as an actor struggling with addiction at the Chateau Marmont hotel, Variety reports.

Somewhere sees Dorff's character living the high life at the hotel, until a surprise visit from his 11-year-old daughter causes him to re-evaluate his existence. She will be played by Elle Fanning, sister of Dakota. It's a plot vaguely familiar from 2007's The Game Plan, in which The Rock's hedonistic lifestyle as an American football star is interrupted by the arrival of an eight-year-old daughter he never knew existed.

Although Somewhere sounds like a two-hander, the Chateau Marmont could find itself turned into a third character in the film, something which Coppola achieved with Tokyo's Park Hyatt in Lost in Translation. The Chateau Marmont certainly has the air of a discreet witness who's seen it all: in its four-score years, everyone from Greta Garbo to Vivien Leigh, Howard Hughes to Lindsay Lohan has stayed there. John Belushi died in one of its garden bungalows in 1982.

The project is only Coppola's fourth feature as director, and comes three years after she endured a critical drubbing for Marie Antoinette.