Following in the footsteps of Shane West, Ryan Gosling, Channing Tatum and Zac Efron, former soap star Josh Duhamel is set to become the latest hottie to make girls everywhere swoon and cry, as Variety reports he is now in negotiations to play the male lead in “Safe Haven”, the latest big screen adaptation of a Nicholas Sparks bestseller. Keira Knightley had entered talks to play the female lead, but that fell through and the search is still on for Duhamel’s love interest.

Lasse Hallstrom directs the film that follows Katie, a mysterious young woman who shows up in a small coastal town in North Carolina harboring dark secrets about her past. Though she tries to avoid it, she falls for handsome widower Alex (Duhamel), with two young children in tow, and forms a friendship with her next door neighbor Jo. Her past catches up to her and we can only assume that at least one person will end up dead and everyone else depressed in the end. The film already has a release date of February 8, 2013, so casting should come together fast.

Duhamel first made girls swoon and cry as Leo on long-running soap “All My Children”, then seemed poised for big screen heartthrob status when he headlined rom coms like “Win a Date with Tad Hamilton!”, “When in Rome” and “Life As We Know It.” Well, those fizzled, but he was in all three “Transformers” movies. Looks like he’ll make another play for that coveted female audience here. Hopefully it’ll work out better than “New Year’s Eve” did.