Hugh Jackman has made his first film commitment since landing a Best Actor Oscar nomination for last year’s Les Miserables.  The actor has signed on to star in Paramount’s feature film adaptation of the upcoming Harlan Coben mystery novel Six Years.  The book tells the story of Jake Fisher, a man who, after having watched the love of his life marry another man six years prior, decides to attend this other man’s funeral in the hopes of spotting his former flame.  Once Jake realizes that the mourning widow is not Natalie but another woman entirely, his past memories with Natalie are thrown into question.  Hit the jump for more. 

Per THR, Paramount does not yet have a writer or director attached to Six Years, but former Fox executive Tom Rothman is producing.  Though Coben’s novels are a favorite among mystery/thriller fans, Six Years will mark only the second book to make it to the big screen.  His novel Tell No One was adapted into a French-language film in 2006, and is currently being developed as an American remake at Warner Bros. with Ben Affleck attached to direct.

Jackman is currently filming the revenge thriller Prisoners alongside Jake Gyllenhaal and has a presumably brief role in Bryan Singer’s sequel X-Men: Days of Future Past, which starts shooting next month.  The actor will next be seen onscreen this summer in director James Mangold’s sequel The Wolverine.

six-years-book-cover

Read the synopsis of Harlan Coben’s Six Years below.  The book publishes on March 19th.

In Six Years, a masterpiece of modern suspense, Harlan Coben explores the depth and passion of lost love…and the secrets and lies at its heart.

Six years have passed since Jake Fisher watched Natalie, the love of his life, marry another man. Six years of hiding a broken heart by throwing himself into his career as a college professor. Six years of keeping his promise to leave Natalie alone, and six years of tortured dreams of her life with her new husband, Todd.

But six years haven’t come close to extinguishing his feelings, and when Jake comes across Todd’s obituary, he can’t keep himself away from the funeral. There he gets the glimpse of Todd’s wife he’s hoping for…but she is not Natalie. Whoever the mourning widow is, she’s been married to Todd for almost two decades, and with that fact everything Jake thought he knew about the best time of his life—a time he has never gotten over—is turned completely inside out.

As Jake searches for the truth, his picture-perfect memories of Natalie begin to unravel. Mutual friends of the couple either can’t be found, or don’t remember Jake. No one has seen Natalie in years. Jake’s search for the woman who broke his heart, who lied to him, soon puts his very life at risk as it dawns on him that the man he has become may be based on a carefully constructed fiction.

Harlan Coben once again delivers a shocking page-turner that deftly explores the power of past love, and the secrets and lies that such love can hide. [Amazon]