According to Variety Russell Crowe will be starring in The Next Three Days with director Paul Haggis (Crash). Haggis also penned the script.

The film is an adaptation of the French film Pour Elle from 2008.

Crowe will be a teacher whose word crashes around him when his wife is arrested and convicted of a murder. She claims her innocence and he devises a way to set her free.

"We've seen him as the gladiator, but he has embodied the Everyman in so many pictures," Haggis said of his star.

When discussing the film he went on to say, "The deeper theme here is, would you save the woman you loved if you knew that by doing so, you would turn into a man that woman could no longer love?"

The film will start shooting in September.