After several stops and starts on other projects, Steven Spielberg has chosen the boy-and-his-horse drama “War Horse” as his next directing effort at DreamWorks Studios. Spielberg will also produce with Kathleen Kennedy, Frank Marshall and Revel Guest.

Lee Hall (“Billy Elliot”) and Richard Curtis (“Pirate Radio”) are adapting the screenplay from the 1982 novel by Michael Morpurgo and the recent stage adaptation by Nick Stafford.

The book tells the epic tale of a friendship between a boy and his horse who become separated but continue to be intertwined as they try to survive the horrors of World War I. “Horse” was a runner-up for the Whitbread Award in the U.K., where it also played onstage at the National Theatre and New London Theatre.

Variety first broke the story today.

DreamWorks picked up the film rights to the book in December. The studio’s distribution partner, Disney, will release the film Aug. 10, 2011.

As he has often done, Spielberg has flirted with a number of films in the past year — including a remake of “Harvey” that he was going to direct for Fox. In the meantime, he’s been muscling through the massive postproduction on his current directing gig, “The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn,” which Paramount will release during the 2011 holidays.

In addition, Spielberg is producing the Coen brothers’ “True Grit,” also for Paramount, and his own studio’s “Cowboys and Aliens,” which starts shooting this summer.