According to The Hollywood Reporter, Brendan Fraser has signed a deal to star in INKHEART, New Line Cinema's adaptation of Cornelia Funke's best-selling children's novel. Iain Softley is directing.

The book centers on a girl whose father, a bookbinder, has the power to bring characters from books to life by reading aloud. When a villainous ruler and his band of rogues from a children's fable kidnap the man, his daughter and her friends -- both real and imaginary -- must set things right. Fraser will play the father, Mortimer "Mo" Folchart, who also is known as Silvertongue.