Stephen King has long been a favourite of filmmakers, and it’s looking like his talented writer son, Joe Hill, is proving to possess a similar knack for turning out stories that people want to adapt. Because Mandalay Pictures has just attached Shia LaBeouf to star in and help develop Hill’s novel Horns.

Playwright Keith Bunin, who cut his screenwriting teeth on HBO series In Treatment, has signed on to write the script for the film, which will follow Ig Perrish, a 26-year-old who blearily awakens from a drunken night out to discover horns sprouting from his head. But those are just one of his problems – there’s his girlfriend’s unsolved murder to solve and the curse that now sits over (and on) his head.

Hill (who started writing without using his father’s famous name so as to stand on his own ability) optioned the book to Mandalay in 2009 shortly before it hit shelves and will also be involved in overseeing the film version.

"Shia is an extremely gifted actor who responded to this novel with total enthusiasm from the beginning," Mandalay’s Cathy Schulman tells Variety. "We share a passion to bring the iconic character of Ig Perrish to life."

LaBeouf has, of course, being doing method preparation for the role of a man who has serious bad luck by appearing in Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen and Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.