Kathy Bates and Maggie Smith are to star in The Miracle Club, a film about a group of Dublin women who go on a pilgrimage to Lourdes.

The film is based on the screenplay Pushers Needed by Irish screenwriter Jimmy Smallhorne and the new film is rumoured to also include Laura Linney, Claire Danes, Joan Allen and Brenda Blethyn.

Pushers Needed was announced at The Cannes Film Festival in 2004 but seems to have been put on ice for the last 16 years. Producers at that event described it as "Calendar Girls meets The Full Monty".

Smallhorne won the Best Cinematography award at Sundance in 1998 with his debut feature '2x4'.

The Miracle Club is the story of a group of harried, working-class housewives who win a trip to Lourdes and leave their husbands behind to care for their children.

Filming is expected to start in Dublin April 2021.