Barry Levinson will direct the made-for-cable-network film, which was penned by Adam Mazer. Executive producers are Levinson, Steve Lee Jones, Lydia Dean Pilcher and Glenn Rigberg.

The untitled project, according to the industry paper, will "revolve around Kevorkian's construction of his infamous 'Mercy Machine,' his first assisted suicide in the early 1990s and the resulting media frenzy."

Kevorkian, whose involvement in an assisted suicide led to his 1999 second-degree murder conviction, was released from jail in 2007.

Al Pacino was most recently on Broadway in Oscar Wilde's Salome: The Reading. He made his Broadway debut in the 1969 production of Does a Tiger Wear Necktie?, earning a Tony Award for his performance. He scored another Tony for his role in the 1977 revival of The Basic Training of Pavlo Hummel. Prior to Salome, the stage and film actor was last on Broadway in 1996 in a revival of Hughie, which he also directed. Pacino's other Broadway credits include Camino Real, King Richard III, American Buffalo and Chinese Coffee. He received the Academy Award for his work in the film "Scent of a Woman."