Warner Bros. Pictures is in negotiations for the feature film rights to Allen Levi’s breakout novel “Theo of Golden,” with Tom Hanks eyed to star.

Gil Netter, Gary Goetzman and Hanks are producing, with Levi executive producing. Jesse Ehrman and Sheila Walcott are overseeing the project for WB Pictures. The team credits literary affairs executive Ian Dalrymple for flagging the project to the studio.

Published by Simon & Schuster in October 2025, the logline reads: “One spring morning, a stranger named Theo arrives in the small Southern city of Golden. He doesn’t explain much about where he came from or why he’s there — but when he visits the local coffeehouse, where pencil portraits of the people of Golden hang on the walls, he begins purchasing them, one at a time, and giving each portrait to the person depicted. In exchange, he asks only for the person’s story. And so portrait by portrait, person by person, secrets are revealed, regrets are shared, and ordinary lives are profoundly altered.”

Domestically, the book is a smash hit. The #1 New York Times bestseller, which has been on the list for over nine consecutive months, has sold over 3.5 million copies and is the highest-selling print book in America for 2026 thus far. Globally, the book has been published in 43 languages and is a #1 bestseller in territories like the U.K., Italy and the Netherlands.

Next up, Hanks will play a hitting coach for the New York Mets in “The Comebacker,” which starts production in the fall. He is repped by CAA, while Levi is repped by WME.

Deadline first reported the news.