EXCLUSIVE: Oscar winner Halle Berry is currently in negotiations to join the cast of Amazon MGM Studios' adaptation of Don Winslow's short story Crime 101, Bart Layton's expected successor to American animals It will star Chris Hemsworth, Mark Ruffalo and Barry Keoghan. The film will be released in cinemas next year.

Plot details are not yet known, but Winslow's original short story has some nuances heat The film follows high-profile jewelry thefts along the Pacific coast that police link to Colombian cartels. Detective Lou Lubesnick has other ideas and sets his sights on a perpetrator, a thief looking for a bottom line. The film will be shot this month.

Layton directs and writes the screenplay with contributions from Peter Straughan. Producers include Story Factory's Shane Salerno, Working Title's Eric Fellner and Tim Bevan, RAW's Layton and Dimitri Doganis, and Derrin Schlesinger. RAW's Joely Fether will serve as executive producer.

Pedro Pascal was linked to the project last year to star opposite Hemsworth, but left the project due to scheduling conflicts. Hemsworth will also produce alongside his producing partner Ben Grayson.

Berry's acting career includes her historic victory in 2002 as the first and only African-American woman to win the Academy Award for Best Actress for her role in The Movie Monster ball. She also starred and produced Introducing Dorothy Dandridge for HBO, for which she won both the Emmy and the Golden Globe, in which she starred and produced Frankie and Alicewhich earned her a Globe nomination. Additional credits include Spike Lees Jungle fever, boomerang with Eddie Murphy, X Men, Die another day, The call, John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellumand most recently Netflix The Union.

Berry produced the Lionsgate thriller through her production company HalleHolly Never let goand we will work on it soon Maude vs. Maude And The process. She is repped by WME, Johnson Shapiro Slewett & Kole and Range Media Partners.