HBO has confirmed Michael Shannon and Michael B Jordan as cast members in its long-awaited adaptation of Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451.

The project has been in the works for at least a year since the announcement that Ramin Bahrani would direct the show.

Jordan, the star of Creed, will take the lead role of Montag, a fireman who decides to undermine his work of burning books, which have been outlawed in the novel’s dystopian future. (As any good geek or pub quiz devotee knows, the title refers to the ignition point of paper, though in reality it lies within a range depending on the type of paper concerned.) Shannon will play his boss Captain Beatty, which makes something of a pattern of evil given he recently played General Zod in Batman vs Superman.

It’ll be the first on-screen adaptation of the book since 1966 (just 13 years after its publication), though several theatrical version have been staged. It follows something of a bidding war to the filming rights with Warner having seriously considered a movie version. While the book is written in three parts and might have lent itself to a miniseries, HBO is also going for a standalone movie.