When we last heard from filmmaker Matthew Vaughn, he was bailing on the "X-Men 3" project and leaving it in the hands of Brett Ratner. Now comes word from Variety that the "Layer Cake" director will be adapting Neil Gaiman's "adult fairy tale" "Stardust: Being a Romance Within the Realms of Faerie" for the big screen.

"Gaiman's novel, first published in 1997 as "Stardust: Being a Romance Within the Realms of Faerie," is set in a town in the English countryside where the magical and mortal mix. Story's centered on a young man who promises his beloved that he'll retrieve a fallen star by venturing into the magical realm, where he has to contend with witches, goblins, gnomes, talking animals and evil trees.

"Stardust," which won the 1999 Mythopoeic Award for adult novel, was originally set up at Dimension. The feature project's being developed with the goal of tapping into veins of fantasy and comedy akin to those in "The Princess Bride" and "The Neverending Story.""