Benedict Cumberbatch and Keira Knightley cast in 'The Imitation Game'

Anyone who grew up in the era of The History Channel's old-school, World War II-heavy programming must remember the Enigma, the coding machine that made appearances in a number of the channel's documentaries. The Enigma was a complex typewriter that transmitted coded messages without ever repeating a letter. The British mathematician Alan Turing was key in figuring out the meaning of oft-repeated phrases, like "Heil Hitler!" Even then, it took other breaks, like having Enigma materials seized on a German U-Boat, to help the Allies decode the messages and turn the tide of the war. The Imitation Game, a modestly-budgeted indie, is tackling Turing's life. Post-war, it had a sad end. He was prosecuted in the U.K. for being gay and forced to take female hormones as a form of chemical castration. He committed suicide not long after, in his 40s. This isn't the first time Turing's story has been dramatized. BBC showed "Breaking the Code," a TV movie about Turing, in 1996.

Benedict Cumberbatch, the star of BBC's "Sherlock" and the villain in Star Trek Into Darkness, will play Turing. Keira Knightley, continuing her passion for period work, will play Turning's close companion, a woman who came from a conservative background but supported him through his physical and mental trials. Graham Moore, who wrote the script for the still-gestating adaptation of the nonfiction bestseller The Devil in the White City, will adapt the screenplay from the biography Alan Turning: The Enigma. Morten Tyldum, the director of Headhunters, will helm.

The Hollywood Reporter writes that the budget will be $15 million, which sounds like a sweet spot for a historical, socially aware indie that will try to catch fire with specialty audiences. The project sounds winning because it will combine the thrills of cryptography and wartime spying with a personal story that's particularly tragic to modern sensibilities. I doubt even socially conservative people against gay marriage would support prosecution and chemical castration for being gay. Cumberbatch has one project in pre-production in his schedule, Guillermo del Toro's Crimson Peak, while Knightley's projects listed on IMDB are all in post-production, so I suspect the project will shoot sometime this year.