Warner Bros. has acquired feature rights to Brad Thor's Scot Harvath thriller novels, which center on a field agent who's a former Navy SEAL involved in counterterrorism ops in the world of underground intelligence, and plans to develop into an action-thriller franchise.

According to Variety, producer Bill Gerber plans to develop The Lions of Lucerne first, as an "origins" story. "We think that this could become something like the Jason Bourne franchise," he added.

The Lions of Lucerne is set on the ski slopes outside Park City, Utah, as terrorists kill 30 agents and kidnap the president, then publicly demand $500 million and privately insist that an anti-fossil fuel proposal in Congress be killed.

Subsequent Brad Thor tomes are "Path of the Assassin," "State of the Union," "Blowback," "Takedown," "The First Commandment," "The Last Patriot," "The Apostle" and "Foreign Influence."

The deal with Warner Bros. also includes "The Athena Project," due to be published later this month as the first book in a series about a team of female agents trained in black ops. The femme operatives were introduced in "Foreign Influence."

No production date has been set.