Just a month after AMC moved on his novel "NOS4A2," Deadline reports Fox has acquired Joe Hill's forthcoming "The Fireman," with Louis Leterrier attached to direct.

Scheduled for release in May, the novel centers on a worldwide pandemic of spontaneous combustion that threatens to reduce civilization to ash unless an improbable group of heroes, led by the enigmatic Fireman, can stop it.

It's the fourth novel by Hill, whose fantasy thriller “Horns” was adapted as a 2014 film starring Daniel Radcliffe, while “Heart Shaped Box” is reportedly being redeveloped at Warner Bros.

“Locke & Key,” the IDW Publishing comic series he created with artist Gabriel Rodriguez, was produced as a television pilot, although Fox ultimately passed on it. The project was announced last year as a potential film trilogy, but that’s now off the table. However, another TV pilot is said to be possible.

Leterrier's credits include "The Transporter," "The Incredible Hulk" and "Now You See Me." His spy comedy "The Brothers Grimsby," starring Sacha Baron Cohen and Mark Strong, opens in March.