Hugh Jackman Opens the Way for "The Amateur"

Seemingly growing well in its progress, Hugh Jackman's Seed Production has successfully landed a Fox 2000 deal to turn Robert Littell's 1981 spy novel into the big screen for the striking actor to star, Variety has revealed.

Entitled "The Amateur" just like the book's title, pic sees Jackman take the lead as a CIA cryptographer whose fiancee is killed in a suspicious plane crash then learns that it turned out to be brought down by terrorist. The hunk will also produce as well with his partner John Palermo while "24" executive producer Evan Katz is attached to pen the script.

Littell's novel, set during the Cold War, actually had been adapted into film feature in 1980 under the same title. The new project, however, will not be a remake but rather a different version which uses the book as source material with Katz contemporizing the tale to launch a character in the vein of Jack Ryan or Jason Bourne.