If you’ve come to associate Michael Bay with cars that can morph into war-fighting robots, shake it off. The director has taken on the film adaptation of “13 Hours in Benghazi,” a 2014 novel written by Boston University journalism professor Mitchell Zuckoff.

The true story, which Zuckoff wrote with the help of the security team involved in the 2012 Benghazi attack, focuses on 13 hours of chaos at the U.S. Special Mission Compound in Benghazi, Libya, told from the perspective of the U.S. response team. Paramount acquired the rights in February of 2014, before the book was published, and the script was written by Chuck Hogan.

Zuckoff, who currently lives in Newton, Mass., isn’t the only local with ties to the project. According to Variety, John Krasinski – a fellow Newton, Mass. native – is in talks to star in the film as a U.S. Navy Seal. The part will be a stark divergent from his best known role as Jim Halpert on “The Office,” but apparently, his reading of the script for a lead role “blew Bay away,” Variety reports.

According to the “13 Hours” IMDb page, the film is currently in pre-production, with no release date listed.

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