Shia LaBeouf Tapped To Star In New Legal Drama Film

Los Angeles, CA (BANG) - Shia LaBeouf is set to star in a new John Grisham adaptation. The actor has agreed to take the lead role in thriller "The Associate" next year.

Shia - who recently made website ETonline's top 10 hunks of 2008 list - will play a Yale Law School student who is manipulated into accepting a job at a high-flying law firm before he discovers privileged information about a sensitive case.

The Associate, Grisham's latest book, is not due to be published until January, but Paramount Pictures has already secured the rights to make it into a movie.

Shia and producer Lorenzo di Bonaventura received early copies of the book while they were shooting sci-fi sequel "Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen" in the Middle East. The pair agreed to sign up to the project together shortly after.

"Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen" is due for release on June 26, 2009.