John C. McGinley ("Scrubs") has signed to co-star in director Rob Cohen's I, Alex Cross, reports Variety. He will play the chief of police in Summit Entertainment's reboot of the James Patterson novels.

McGinley joins a cast that includes Tyler Perry, Matthew Fox, Ed Burns, Jean Reno, Giancarlo Esposito and Rachel Nichols.

The series of novels, begun in 1993 with "Along Came a Spider," features a forensic psychologist named Alex Cross. Morgan Freeman played the role twice, first in an adaptation of the second book in the series, Kiss the Girls in 1997 and later in 2001 when Along Came a Spider itself was adapted.

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