Nicolas Cage will star in Hannibal Classics’ thriller “Vengeance: A Love Story,” with shooting starting in March in Atlanta, Variety has learned.

Hannibal is starting international sales this week at the Berlin Film Festival.

Producers are Richard Rionda Del Castro of Hannibal Classics and Michael Mendelsohn of Patriot Pictures. The executive producer is Patricia Eberle.

Harold Becker is directing from a John Mankiewicz screenplay, based on the 2003 novel by Joyce Carol Oates called “Rape: A Love Story.”

Oates’ novel centers on the aftermath of a victim of gang rape, left for dead in a park boathouse. The victim is a single mother in her 30s, and the attack is witnessed by her daughter. A policeman who is a Gulf War veteran becomes her unexpected champion.

“Vengeance: A Love Story” was in development by Patriot Pictures in 2009 with Samuel L. Jackson attached.

Hannibal and Cage teamed up a year ago on the World War II movie “USS Indianapolis: Men of Courage” with shooting last summer in Alabama. Mario Van Peebles directed, and Saban Films acquired U.S. rights for the movie, which centered on what happened after the ship was torpedoed in the South Pacific in July 1945, after delivering parts for the first atomic bombs.