Justin Timberlake's latest move in his burgeoning acting career is to team up with Ben Affleck. The pair look set to star in the online gambling drama Runner, Runner, according to the Hollywood Reporter.

The film is being directed by The Lincoln Lawyer's Brad Furman, based on a screenplay by Brian Koppelman and David Levien. The latter pair have form when it comes to stories about the world of gambling: they also wrote the 1998 thriller Rounders, about high stakes backroom poker games.

Runner, Runner examines the offshore online gaming community, and centres on an increasingly tense relationship between a business founder and his protege. Timberlake has signed on for one role, with Affleck in final negotiations for another. Leonardo DiCaprio's Appian Way unit is developing the project and the shoot is due to commence in June.

Timberlake has taken a series of high-profile acting roles in recent years, impressing in David Fincher's Oscar-winning The Social Network and last year's underrated Andrew Niccol science-fiction thriller, In Time. Affleck these days splits his time between acting and directing, occasionally taking on both roles as he did for his critically acclaimed 2010 heist drama The Town.