Rachel McAdams, Mark Ruffalo, Stanley Tucci and Michael Keaton are in talks to star in a film about the Catholic church’s attempt to conceal sexual abuse by priests, according to multiple reports.

The film, Spotlight, will follow the Boston Globe’s investigation into the decades-long cover-up of church sexual abuse in Massachusetts. The Globe’s Pulitzer Prize-winning reporting lead to the resignation of Cardinal Bernard Law, who had helped hide a history of serial abuse, and also precipitated a wave of similar charges across the US and the world.

Ruffalo and McAdams are rumoured to be slated to play the reporters Michael Rezendes and Sacha Pfeiffer. Life rights have been secured for a handful of the other editors and reporters responsible for the investigation.

The film was announced in April 2010. Dreamworks acquired the story’s film rights in April 2013, then dropped the then-untitled film two months later. Participant Media is now financing the film, though it has yet to be picked up by a studio.

Tom McCarthy, who wrote films including Win, Win and The Station Agent, and Josh Singer, who wrote The Fifth Estate and for several television shows including The West Wing, are behind the script. McCarthy is also directing.