Jay Roach to Direct HBO's Cold-War Telepic 'K Blows Top' (Exclusive)

Hollywood and politics might make strange bedfellows, but Jay Roach is quite comfortable with the arrangement.

After helming the critical darling and ratings hit Game Change for HBO Films, Roach is attached to direct the Cold War-era project K Blows Top for the pay cabler.

Project reteams Roach with Playtone's Tom Hanks and Gary Goetzman, who exec produced Game Change.

K Blows Top chronicles Nikita Khrushchev's 13-day American sojourn in September 1959, a time when Cold War tensions between the world superpowers were running high. Paul Giamatti is on board to play the Soviet leader.

Paul Bernbaum penned the adaptation of Peter Carlson's book of the same name.

Roach, whose Game Change is expected to garner Emmy attention, has the political-themed comedy The Campaign on tap. The Warner Bros. pic, which stars Will Ferrell and Zach Galifianakis, bows Aug. 10.

Hanks and Goetzman are exec producing K Blows Top, while Perri Kipperman and David Stern are serving as co-executive producers.

Roach, who has directed some of the highest-grossing comedies of all time including Meet the Fockers, is repped by WME and Mosaic.