Jones Takes On Emma Thompsons 'Nanny McPhee'

British director Kirk Jones ("Waking Ned Devine") has inked to helm the MGM comedy "Nanny McPhee," penned by Emma Thompson, reports Variety.

The last time Thompson both wrote and starred in a theatrical motion picture was in 1995, when she won the adapted screenplay Oscar for "Sense and Sensibility" and was nominated for actress. In "Nanny," she will play a governess who uses magic to alter the behavior of a gaggle of previously irredeemable kids.

"Nanny" is based on the British "Nurse Matilda" books written in the mid-'60s by Christianna Brand -- the pen name of Mary Christianna Milne Lewis, a prolific mystery novelist and herself a former governess.