The name J.J. Abrams is mostly synonymous with big studio tentpoles, heavily set in genre and specifically sci-fi, but along with his Bad Robot company, he’s been venturing to other areas. They produced the romantic comedy Morning Glory, which unfortunately disappointed at the box office back in 2010. Now he’s set to get behind another project that stretching outside his usual arena.

Deadline is reporting that Paramount just paid a flat $1 million for rights to Jonathan Tropper’s currently unpublished novel One Last Thing Before I Go. He will write the script for the film set to be produced by Abrams, along with Bad Robot. The novel, coming from the man behind New York Times’ bestseller This is Where I Leave You, follows a man reconnecting with his distant family members. It’s always nice to see a heavyweight in Hollywood like Abrams switch it up every so often. While this is one is still very early in the development process, stay tuned for more news as it comes in and check out an expanded synopsis below via Amazon.

Silver has begun to accept that life isn’t going to turn out as he expected. His ex-wife is about to marry a terrific guy Silver can’t quite bring himself to hate. And his Princeton-bound teenage daughter Casey has just confided in him that she’s pregnant—because he’s the one she cares least about letting down. With the wedding looming and Casey in crisis, this broken family struggles, bonds, and comes together only to risk damaging each other even more. Lives begin anew, change radically, or in Silver’s case—as he discovers that he could die at any moment without an operation he refuses to have—may be about to end in an instant.

Are you looking forward to this project? Do you plan to read the novel?