‘Wolverine’ star Hugh Jackman boards movie adaptation of YA best-seller novel ‘Diary of a Part-Time Indian’

By Daphne Planca / Jan 03, 2017 08:33 AM EST
(Photo : Getty Images/Frazer Harrison) Actor Hugh Jackman attended the MPTF 95th anniversary celebration with “Hollywood's Night Under The Stars” at MPTF Wasserman Campus on Oct. 1 in Los Angeles, California.
(Photo : Getty Images/Chris Felver ) Portrait of Native American author Sherman Alexie smiled at Santa Fe, New Mexico, 2014.

"Wolverine" star Hugh Jackman boards the movie adaptation of YA best-seller novel "Diary of a Part-Time Indian." He is also on board to produce with Fox 2000.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, Jackman will play a supporting role in the "Diary of a Part-Time Indian" as well as serve in some producing capacity. He is not involved in an acting role at this point. He has a first-look deal at Fox.

Fox 2000 is developing a movie based on Sherman Alexie's YA best-selling novel "The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian," Variety reported. "Smoke Signals" writer Alexie penned the book and will adapt the screenplay, with Temple Hill ("The Fault in Our Stars") and Donners' Company ("Deadpool") producing.

"Diary of a Part-Time Indian" is published in 2017 and is a first-person narrative by Native American teenager Arnold Spirit, Jr. (also known as Junior). He is a budding 14-year-old cartoonist growing up on the Spokane Indian Reservation. He is the only Native American in his first year at the new school.

Junior is always been picked on and is encouraged by a high school teacher to go to an all-white public high school off the reservation. Determined to take his future into his own hands, he leaves his troubled school on the reservation to attend an all-white farming town high school where the only other Indian is the school mascot.

Alexie's novel "The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian" features 65 comic illustrations by Ellen Forney. It continues to sell briskly, appearing on the New York Times' best-seller list years after its initial run. Alexie also wrote the short story collection "The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven," which he adapted for the screenplay for the 1998 indie breakout movie "Smoke Signals."

The studio has set up the "Diary of a Part-Time Indian" with Fox-based Temple Hill and The Donners' Company. The producers are Jackman, Temple Hill's Wyck Godfrey, Marty Bowen, and Isaac Klausner, with Lauren Shuler Donner and Jack Leslie. Elizabeth Gabler and Erin Siminoff are overseeing at Fox 2000.

Watch the video about YA best-seller snags Jackman and Fox 2000 Team: