Patrick Dempsey has joined up with Universal Pictures to star in The Art of Racing in the Rain. Studio will develop the bestselling Garth Stein novel.

The story is narrated by the reminiscences of Enzo, a family dog with a near-human soul and a philosopher’s mind, who evaluates his life through the lessons learned by his human owner, the race-car driver Denny Swift.  Enzo in his own dog way helps Swift through a lot of angst with a worthwhile ending, throughout all this Enzo dreams of being human.

As an interesting note and perhaps some of you don’t know this, Dempsey, who’ll play Swift, is a consummate pro race car driver and car owner who most recently drove Le Mans and finished ninth in the race. He also races in the American Rolex Series and owns Dempsey Racing, a team that has a deal with Mazda.

(Source)