Peter O'Toole's staying in The Christmas Cottage

That sound you’re hearing is Hollywood again scraping the bottom of the creative barrel.

Because the latest bright idea for a film boasts a concept and script based on a painting. Admittedly, it’s not just any painting (though we’d pay to see Dogs Playing Poker directed by Doug Liman), it’s an iconic American image daubed by Thomas Kinkade known as The Christmas Cottage.

The painting, unsurprisingly, features a wintry cottage but the film will expand a little further on the idea, adding in semi-biographical elements that help explain how Kinkade came to paint sloshing.

And despite the seemingly thin basis, it’s already drawing a cast – Peter O’Toole has climbed aboard, agreeing to play painter Glen Weissler, a character apparently based on one of Kinkade’s mentors.

Michael Campus is directing, with a shoot set for this month in Vancouver. If anyone’s interested, we just sneezed and would be willing to sell the tissue to a passing scriptwriter.