Taylor Schilling (Mercy) will play the female lead in Scott Hicks’ (No Reservations) adaptation of the Nicholas Sparks novel, The Lucky One.  According to THR, the young actress beat out a group of her peers including Abbie Cornish and Katie Cassidy to land the highly coveted role of Zac Efron’s love interest.  The film revolves around Efron, who plays a Marine (naturally) that survives three tours of duty in Iraq and attributes this brand of luck to his carrying the photograph of a woman (Schilling) he has never met.  Of course, when he returns home from duty, he sets out on a seemingly impossible/irrevocably romantic journey to find the woman.

The Lucky One is the latest in a long line of Sparks adaptations which most recently includes: The Notebook, Nights in Rodanthe, Dear John, and The Last Song.  As such, we should have a pretty good idea of what to expect from the film’s narrative (at least it doesn’t star Miley Cyrus… yet).  The Lucky One is scheduled to begin filming in the fall with a 2012 release in mind.