Sony Pictures and Original Films have picked up filmmaker Gary Hardwick's upcoming novel "The Executioner's Game" as a starring vehicle for Jamie Foxx. Neal Moritz and Ori Marmur will produce through their Original Film.

The novel, to be released by Harper Collins in January, follows Foxx as an undercover operative for an ultra-secret government agency who must track down and assassinate his mentor, who has gone rogue.

Hardwick will adapt his book. Although he wrote and directed his last two features, "Deliver Us from Eva" and "The Brothers," he is not attached to direct at this time.

Sources say the deal is in the mid-six against low-seven figures.

Matt Tolmach and Shannon Gaulding will oversee the project for the studio.

"Executioner's Game" is Hardwick's sixth novel. He recently adapted his novel "The Color of Justice" for Focus Films. Hardwick is repped by Bruce Kaufman and Todd Hoffman at Broder Webb Chervin Silbermann Agency and Peter Nichols at LGNAG.

Foxx, repped by CAA, is generating Oscar buzz for his performance as Ray Charles in the upcoming biopic "Ray."