James Marsden has been offered the starring role in Relativity Media's The Best of Me, where he would replace the late Paul Walker. The news comes just hours after Rupert Friend stepped in to replace the actor in Agent 47.

The Best of Me is adapted from the Nicholas Sparks novel of the same name. The story follows two high school sweethearts, Dawson Cole and Amanda Collier, who reunite 25 years later at the funeral of their friend. James Marsden will play Dawson, if he accepts the offer, with Michelle Monaghan portraying Amanda.

Take a look at the novel's official description below.

"In the spring of 1984, high school students Amanda Collier and Dawson Cole fell deeply, irrevocably in love. Though they were from opposite sides of the tracks, their love for one another seemed to defy the realities of life in the small town of Oriental, North Carolina. But as the summer of their senior year came to a close, unforeseen events would tear the young couple apart, setting them on radically divergent paths.

Now, twenty-five years later, Amanda and Dawson are summoned back to Oriental for the funeral of Tuck Hostetler, the mentor who once gave shelter to their high school romance. Neither has lived the life they imagined... and neither can forget the passionate first love that forever changed their lives. As Amanda and Dawson carry out the instructions Tuck left behind for them, they realize that everything they thought they knew-about Tuck, about themselves, and about the dreams they held dear-was not as it seemed. Forced to confront painful memories, the two former lovers will discover undeniable truths about the choices they have made. And in the course of a single, searing weekend, they will ask of the living, and the dead: Can love truly rewrite the past?"

Michael Hoffman is directing from an adapted screenplay he co-wrote with Will Fetters and J. Mills Goodloe. It isn't known when production may begin. Relativity Media currently has the adaptation slated for an October 17 release, but that was before Paul Walker's death, so that date may be shifted.