With the “Transformers” franchise behind him, Michael Bay is already targeting production on his next film.

Sources tell Variety that John Krasinski is in talks to star in Paramount’s “13 Hours,” which has Bay directing and is based on the true story recounting the attack on the U.S. Special Mission Compound and a nearby CIA Annex in Benghazi, Libya, on the 11th anniversary of Sept. 11.

Krasinski will play one of the lead roles, a Navy SEAL, in the real-life thriller.

Chuck Hogan penned the script based on Mitchell Zuckoff’s book “Thirteen Hours: A Firsthand Account of What Really Happened in Benghazi,” to which Paramount acquired rights in February before it was published. Erwin Stoff produces through 3 Arts Entertainment’s production shingle.

Several had actors had been reading for roles in the film, including Woody Harrelson, J.K. Simmons, Walton Goggins and Shea Whigham, but sources say it was Krasinski who blew Bay away with an early meeting for one of the starring roles.

Following the end of his hit TV show “The Office,” Krasinksi has been patient in finding his next project and in the past had normally not gone after tentpole pics like this, preferring prestige films like “Promised Land” and the Sam Mendes movie “Away We Go.”

Krasinski can be seen next in the untitled Cameron Crowe pic starring Emma Stone and Bradley Cooper. He is repped by WME.

Confirming the news Deadline reported back in April, Paramount said today that its Benghazi drama 13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers Of Benghazi will land in theaters January 15, 2016 during the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday weekend.

Based on the nonfiction book 13 Hours: The Inside Account Of What Really Happened In Benghazi by Mitchell Zuckoff, the story tracks the September 11-12, 2012 attack on the U.S. Diplomatic compound in Benghazi that took the lives of U.S. Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens and U.S. Foreign Service Information Management Officer Sean Smith, as well as the adjacent attack on a nearby facility in which two CIA contractors were killed. The book doesn’t really get into the myriad conspiracy theories surrounding the attacks, instead offering a minute-by-minute look at events. Zuckoff drew from accounts by several CIA contractors.

Directed by Michael Bay from a script by Chuck Hogan (The Strain), 13 Hours is produced by Erwin Stoff. It stars James Badge Dale, John Krasinski, Toby Stephens, Pablo Schreiber, Max Martini, David Denman, Dominic Fumusa and Freddie Stroma.