Hollywood superproducer Harvey Weinstein is planning to take on the US gun lobby with a new film starring Meryl Streep.

Weinstein said the project, titled The Senator's Wife, would directly target pro-gun advocates such as the National Rifle Association. Speaking on shock jock Howard Stern's SiriusXM radio show, he said: "We're going to take this issue head-on, and they're going to wish they weren't alive after I'm done with them. It's going to be like crash and burn."

Weinstein said he did not own a gun and believed the US would be a better country without firearms. "I never want to have a gun," he said. "I don't think we need guns in this country, and I hate it, and I think the NRA is a disaster area." He said the film would be a "big movie like a Mr Smith Goes to Washington". Frank Capra's Oscar-winning politically themed 1939 classic was a controversial film at the time for its thinly veiled diatribes against government corruption.

According to the Hollywood Reporter there is no writer or director yet attached to The Senator's Wife and no plot details have been unveiled. However the combination of Weinstein, an ever-present awards season figure, and the multiple Oscar-winning Streep should augur well for the film's critical currency.