Screen Gems says the actress will star as the lead in the border thriller The Crossing.

Byron Willinger and Philip de Blasi penned the pic, in which a couple returning from a Mexican vacation is carjacked and the husband kidnapped. The wife (Fox) must smuggle heroin across the border in order to spring him.

Directors are meeting on the project, and production could begin as soon as July. Jeff Okin will produce with Pink Slip Pictures’ Karen Firestone and Max Wong. Screen Gems president Clint Culpepper and senior vp production Nick Phillips are overseeing for the studio.

Culpepper noted that Fox is ideal for the role of a woman who must be both victim and hero. The part “requires a vulnerability to make you care about her but a kind of strength to make you believe she can pull off the things she needs to,” he said. “And Megan has both a vulnerability about her and an unbelievable strength.”

The ICM-repped Fox has been racking up the gigs lately: She’s attached to play an angel opposite Mickey Rourke in the Mitch Glazer indie drama Passion Plays, will star in the Western Jonah Hex for Warners and will topline and produce the comic book actioner Fathom for Fox Atomic.

She’s next up in summer tentpole Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen and the Diablo Cody-penned supernatural high school tale Jennifer’s Body.

Source: THR / RiskyBusinessBlog.com