Friday Night Lights: According to The Hollywood Reporter, Lucas Black, who appears in the upcoming Cold Mountain for Miramax Films, will star as the quarterback in Universal Pictures' football drama Friday Night Lights for director Peter Berg.

Brian Grazer is producing through Imagine Entertainment. Billy Bob Thornton is toplining "Lights," which is based on the book "Friday Night Lights: A Town, a Team and a Dream," by H.G. Bissinger.

It chronicles the 1988 football season of the Odessa (Texas) Permian High Panthers, capturing the struggles and hopes of a financially troubled town that pins all of its dreams on the team's Friday night games. Black will play Winchell, the quarterback. The movie will be shot in and around Odessa early next year.