What kind of fictitious couple would Natalie Portman and Brad Pitt make? She seems… dare I say… too young for the 45-year-old actor. She’s 27 years old (she turns 28 in June), but looks and acts younger to me. Anyway, Brad and Natalie will be playing lovers in the just-announced film Artifacts, based on the Leanne Shapton book Important Artifacts and Personal Property from the Collection of Lenore Doolan and Harold Morris, Including Books, Street Fashion, and Jewelry. Both Natalie and Brad will produce as well as star. Variety has more:
Paramount Pictures has attached Brad Pitt and Natalie Portman to star in a film based on the new Leanne Shapton book “Important Artifacts and Personal Property from the Collection of Lenore Doolan and Harold Morris, Including Books, Street Fashion, and Jewelry.” The book was just published by Farrar Straus & Giroux.
Paramount won an auction for the book rights Tuesday night, with Pitt’s Plan B producing with Portman’s Handsomecharlie Films banner. Portman brought the book to Pitt, whose company is Par-based.
The book takes the form of Sotheby’s-like estate auction catalog, with 325 entries and photographs depicting items that reveal the private moments and the rise and fall of a four-year relationship between the fictitious couple Hal Morris (a 40ish photographer) and Lenore Doolan, (a New York Times food columnist in her late 20s).
The project will be developed as a romantic comedy, with Pitt to play Morris, and Portman to play Doolan.
Shapton, an illustrator and art director of the NYT’s Op-Ed page, uses items that range from clothes to notes, e-mails and heirlooms to convey the excitement, the hopes and dreams, and ultimately the heartache of a love affair that runs its course.
CAA brokered the deal.
Pitt, who’ll next be seen starring in the Quentin Tarantino-directed “Inglourious Basterds” and the Terence Malick-directed “The Tree of Life,” is expected to next star in the Steven Soderbergh-directed “Moneyball.” It’s the latest high-profile lit buy for his Plan B, which has James Gray writing to direct an adaptation of the just-published David Grann book “The Lost City of Z.” Earlier this week, Par acquired the John Le Carre novel “The Night Manager” for Pitt to produce.
Portman will next be seen in the Jim Sheridan-directed drama “Brothers.”
[From Variety]
If the book was just published, and Paramount just won the rights, there’s a good chance the screenplay adaptation won’t be ready for months, maybe even a year. Reading a description of it, I’d say that it will be a difficult translation into film. But still, I bet the book is an interesting read.
I’m really wondering about the potential chemistry between Natalie and Brad. I realize I just said it, but she just seems so young and girlish. Next to her, Brad will look so much older. Like when Catherine Zeta-Jones first hooked up with Michael Douglas. That kind of “Oh my God, he’s dating his daughter!” nonsense. I wish Brad would stick to female co-stars in their 30s and 40s. Maybe he could do another film with Cate Blanchett!
Here’s Natalie taking her dog Charlie in Los Feliz, California on March 8th. Images thanks to BauerGriffinOnline.
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