New Zealand actor Karl Urban ("Doom", "The Bourne Supremacy", "Lord of the Rings") is in negotiations to star in "Pathfinder," a Viking epic being made by Director Marcus Nispel (2003's "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre") says The Hollywood Reporter.

"Pathfinder" is a remake of the 1987 Norwegian film which followed Norway's warlike clans around the year 1000 A.D. The US remake is set in North America around the same time, when Vikings inadvertently discovered the continent 500 years before Columbus.

The story centers on a Viking boy who accidentally is left behind during a skirmish between the Vikings and Americans Indians. The American Indians raise the boy as their own, but when their village is wiped out in a Viking raid, the adopted Viking becomes his people's defender in battling the Norsemen.

Urban would play the adopted Viking. Screenwriter Laeta Kalogridis ("Alexander") penned the script. Shooting is scheduled to begin this Fall for release mid-late 2006 by 20th Century Fox.

Thanks to 'Randy'