Alcon Entertainment has attached Viola Davis to star in and Richard LaGravenese to write and direct an adaptation of the New York Times bestseller "Beautiful Creatures," the company said Thursday.

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"Beautiful Creatures" is the first of Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl's supernatural thrillers, and Alcon has film rights to all three of the books. The company is hoping to turn "Beautiful Creatures" into a franchise.

The movie is about Ethan, a teen-aged boy, and Lena, a mysterious new girl in town. Together, they uncover dark secrets about their families and the town where they live.

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Davis will play Amma, a seer who watches after Ethan and his father after the boy's mother dies.

Davis is nominated for a best actress Oscar for her role in "The Help." The role won her a Screen Actors Guild award.

Erwin Stoff ("The Matrix," "I Am ALegend") will produce with Alcon's co-founders and co-CEOs Broderick Johnson and Andrew Kosove.

LaGravenese directed Alcon's "P.S. I Love You," and wrote "Water for Elephants," "The Bridges of Madison County" and "The Fisher King."

"This story successfully uses the bucolic, peaceful world of the Gothic South and the stories of families that have been rooted there for generations to tell a story of fated love," Stoff said in a statement. "A mythic struggle between good and evil."

The movie begins filming in April in and around New Orleans.