Matthew McConaughey had better get his jogging shoes on – as he is signed up to star in Born To Run.

The film is based on Christopher McDougall’s best-selling book, Born To Run: A Hidden Tribe, Super Athletes, And The Greatest Race The World Has Never Seen, about the Tarahumara Indians of Mexico, who are able to run hundreds of miles without rest or injury.

Matthew is attached to star in the project, according to Deadline, which has been adapted for the screen by World War Z’s Matthew Michael Carnahan.

Matthew McConaughey
Matthew McConaughey (Jonathan Brady/PA)

McDougall is an award-winning journalist who found himself always injured by running. So he travelled to Mexico’s isolated, deadly Copper Canyons to spend time with the Tarahumara Indians and discover their secret. His book ended with a climactic race in the Copper Canyons that pitted America’s best ultra-runners against the tribe.

The book spent 178 weeks on the NYT Bestseller list and is still selling 10,000 copies a month. It ignited the “barefoot running movement”, and demand for “barefoot-style” shoes.

This back-to-nature action should suit Matthew, who used to live in an caravan park in Malibu and run on the beach bare-chested every day. Until rumour has it wife Camilia Alves insisted he get a proper home as she didn’t like using the park’s public facilities.