Up to this point, Liam Hemsworth had to sit back and watch his older brother, Chris, score all of the blockbuster projects. While Liam did appear alongside Mily Cyrus on the adaptation of Nicholas Sparks’ The Last Song, Chris earned the part of Thor in The Avengers and a standalone prequel, as well as the role of the Huntsman opposite Kristen Stewart’s Snow White.

But the tide is about to change. Liam appears as Gale Hawthorne in Gary Ross’s anticipated The Hunger Games. He landed the part of Billy “The Kid” Timmons in The Expendables 2. And THR reports that he just scored the lead in director Phillip Noyce’s romantic drama Timeless.

Working from a script by Enchanted writer Bill Kelly, the two-hander tells the story of a grieving widower (Hemsworth) who tries to invent a time machine that will let him go back and see his recently deceased wife one last time. That’s a solid premise, and it will be interesting to see if Noyce explores the science-fiction of the scenario or focuses on a crumbling man slowly going insane because he can’t overcome the obstacles standing in his way.

These are the types of pictures I want to see Noyce attempting. Not lazy genre fluff like Sliver or Salt, which made money but didn’t challenge him as a storyteller. Noyce is at his finest when he’s working on multi-layered dramas like Rabbit-Proof Fence, The Quiet American or Backroads. Let’s hope Timeless is more in line with those past greats.