By Justin Kroll

Octavia Spencer is in final negotiations to play God in Lionsgate’s adaptation of the bestselling novel The Shack.

Stuart Hazeldine is directing the pic, with Gil Netter producing through Netter Productions along with Brad Cummings. Production is set to start this spring.

Based on the William P. Young novel published in 2007, the story follows a man whose youngest daughter is abducted during a family vacation, with evidence found in an abandoned shack leading authorities to believe she was murdered. Four years later, the man receives a note, apparently from God, inviting him back to the shack and, against his better judgment, he accepts the invitation and finds something there that will change his life forever.

The book adaptation would be a major project for Lionsgate, which acquired it in 2013, as it has sold more than than 18 million copies worldwide in 39 languages, with 10 million in the U.S.

The role looks like another strong opportunity for Spencer, who won an Academy award for her role in The Help.

Spencer has been busy since her Oscar win, balancing her time between dramas, tentpoles and TV roles. In 2014, she appeared in Snowpiercer, James Brown biopic Get on Up, and Relativity drama Black and White, for which she received some of her strongest reviews since The Help.

This year she will be seen next in Insurgent, the follow-up to the box office hit Divergent, followed by Voltage pic Fathers and Daughters.

She is repped by WME and Jackoway, Tyerman, Wertheimer, Austen, Mandelbaum, Morris & Klein.

Photo: Jason LaVeris/FilmMagic