Universal is getting in gear for "Drive," optioning James Sallis' novel about a Hollywood stunt driver as a starring vehicle for Hugh Jackman. Jackman and partner John Palermo will also produce through their Seed Prods. banner says Variety

Sallis' noir-style story, set in the seamy underside of Southern California and Arizona, centers on a stuntman who moonlights as a wheelman during robberies and discovers that a contract has been put on him.

Sallis, who's repped by APA, first penned "Drive" as a short story in the anthology "Measures of Poison," then expanded it to novella length and sold it to Poisoned Pen Press, which published it last September.