Peter Bratt has signed on to direct The Silent Spring of Rachel Carson, according to The Hollywood Reporter this morning. The biopic of the bravely outspoken environmentalist has been written by Gail Brice, based on Carson's personal papers, archived at Yale.

Carson was a marine biologist who turned her attentions to conservation in the late 1950s. Her discovery of the environmental damage caused by synthetic pesticides resulted in her famous book The Silent Spring in 1962, which led directly to both the banning of some harmful pesticides, and the creation of The Environmental Protection Agency. She died in 1964. She was posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1980, and The Society for Social Studies in Science has awarded an annual Rachel Carson Prize for science and technology studies with political relevance since 1998.

Bratt's most recent film was La Mission, with Talisa Soto and his brother Benjamin, which has been around on the festival circuit in the last year or so. The producers are Lynn Hendee and Robert Chartoff, who are behind Julie Taymor's The Tempest. 

The Silent Spring caused massive, vitriolic opposition from the chemical companies affected, which we guess will be a good dramatic thrust for the movie. Any ideas who might play Carson?