Earlier this week, we reported that Alex Pettyfer (I Am Number Four) had been offered a starring role in The Last Apprentice and that Jeff Bridges and Jennifer Lawrence (Winter's Bone) were also circling the project.  Just Jared reports that the project is now titled The Seventh Son (it was formerly titled "The Spook's Apprentice") and that Bridges is officially on board to play an exorcist.  The film, which is set in the 1700s, follows Tom Ward (Pettyfer, if he signs on), an exorcist-in-training who is able to see and hear ghosts and can smell the presence of death.  Lawrence would play a suspected witch.  Sergey Bodrov (Mongol: The Rise of Genghis Khan) will direct.

Hit the jump for a synopsis of the first novel in the Last Apprentice series.

Here's the synopsis for The Last Apprentice: Revenge of the Witch:

Twelve-year-old Thomas Ward, as the seventh son of a seventh son, has no inheritance and is bored with farm work, and even though his new job will mean the superstitious villagers will forever shun him, he is eager to go off to adventure with the tall, hooded man he calls the Spook. His mother, a magical person herself, approves, and the Spook’s teaching is strict but kind. But when Tom has only learned enough to be able to control their house-boggart, he is tricked by Alice, the young daughter of a witch family, into inadvertently releasing and then killing Mother Malkin, a witch the Spook has imprisoned in a pit. This is no polite wicca-type witch, but a snuffling, slime-trailing, cannibalistic creature reminiscent of Tolkien’s nasgils. The story of Tom’s escape from the reincarnated witch’s hideous revenge is full of horrible details, as Alice helps, and then once again betrays him. This well-crafted novel marks an auspicious start for an exciting and fast series for young teens. [Amazon]

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