Variety reports Brad Pitt and Natalie Portman have signed on to star in a feature film adaptation of 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” for Paramount Pictures. Pitt and Portman will produce through their respective production houses.
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 is being developed as a romantic comedy with Pitt to play Morris, and Portman to play Doolan. There is no word on a writer or director.
Portman’s name has been tossed around recently in rumors relating to Marvel’s Thor, but for now those are nothing more than rumors as her next actual screen appearnce will be the Jim Sheridan-directed drama Brothers with Tobey Maguire and Jake Gyllenhaal. As for Pitt he will be seen twice this year in Quentin Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds and opposite Sean Penn in Terence Malick’s Tree of Life.
