Costner planning animated series

Costner won two Oscars in 1990 for the film Dances With Wolves

Oscar-winning Kevin Costner is to produce an internet-based animated series about a band of 19th Century explorers, it has been reported.

The 52-year-old director of Dances with Wolves will also lend his voice to the series, The Explorers Club, trade newspaper Variety said.

The series will be made available online in 12 four-minute segments.

Costner hopes to build a following before beginning work on a live-action film version, the report added.

Each episode will see a group of Victorian-era explorers travelling to a different corner of the world.

The Chiodo Brothers, known for their work on Killer Klowns from Outer Space, will do the animation.

Costner said: "Each episode is clever and visual, it works as a series, and it has massive potential for the big screen... as a film-maker, I was excited by the opportunities to draw an audience into a story in a new way."

Costner is currently starring in the serial-killer thriller Mr Brooks, and will appear next year in Swing Vote, about a man whose vote decides a US presidential election.