LOS ANGELES - Jon Stewart, serious movie director?

The stand-up satirist and "Daily Show" host on Tuesday said he would direct his first film, a drama called "Rosewater," from a screenplay that he wrote.

The movie - which will require a 12-week absence from his "Daily Show" duties - is an adaptation of the 2011 book "And Then They Came For Me: A Family's Story of Love, Captivity and Survival" by Maziar Bahari and Aimee Molloy.

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