Hugh Jackman is to star in the adaptation of the Robert Littell spy novel
The Amateur, according to Variety.
Jackman will play a CIA cryptographer whose fiancee is killed in a suspicious plane crash. When he discovers that the plane was brought down by terrorists, he finds the leverage that forces his bosses to train him to exact revenge.
Littell's novel, which was set during the Cold War, was previously turned into a 1981 film. New pic isn't a remake, but a different version using the book as source material. Katz will contemporize the tale with the goal of launching a character in the vein of Jack Ryan or Jason Bourne.