John Malkovich has replaced Ralph Fiennes as the star of "Disgrace," the bigscreen adaptation of J.M. Coetzee's Booker Prize-winning novel, according to Variety.

Malkovich plays a professor of romantic poetry who has an affair with one of his students and is driven into exile. But his new love is tested when the pair become victims of a vicious attack.

Filming begins this fall and will be directed by Steve Jacobs (Spagnola). The screenplay was written by Anna-Maria Monticelli (Spagnola) and has been approved by Coetzee.