Looks like Peter Morgan’s special relationship with Tony Blair movies has taken a slight detour, after the Oscar-nominated writer today bowed out of his directing duties on the upcoming HBO movie, The Special Relationship.

The movie, which will examine the relationship between Blair (Michael Sheen, playing the role for a third time) and Bill Clinton (Dennis Quaid), would have been the directing debut for Morgan who, of course, wrote The Deal and The Queen, the previous telefilms in which Sheen played Blair.

With filming scheduled to start soon, HBO and co-producers, the BBC, have moved quickly to replace him with a fellow Brit, Richard Loncraine.

No reason has yet been given for Morgan’s departure, although we wouldn’t be surprised if his recent appointment as writer of the new James Bond movie didn’t have something to do with it. With Bond 23 looking at a late 2010 provisional release date, the script must be eating up a lot of Morgan’s time – perhaps more time than he could dedicate to The Special Relationship, although he remains on board as screenwriter and executive producer. We should stress, though, that this is all mere speculation on Empire's part.

The Special Relationship – which also stars Julianne Moore as Hillary Clinton and Helen McCrory as Cherie Blair – will start shooting next month in London. As an HBO movie, it’s unlikely to get a theatrical release in the States, but we wouldn’t be surprised to see it airing in cinemas over here, much like The Queen.

Loncraine’s next movie, incidentally, is the Renee Zellweger romantic comedy, My One And Only.