Stage 3 of 10 In Quest To Become Ruler Of The World
It’s been a good few months for Natalie Portman. She’s a front-runner for the Best Actress Oscar for her extraordinary performance in Darren Aronofsky‘s “Black Swan,” she’s got three films on the way next year — the rom-com “No Strings Attached,” the superhero epic “Thor,” and David Gordon Green‘s fantasy comedy “Your Highness” — and she’s been linked to every hot project in town in the last few months, from “Gravity“ and the “Alien” prequel to “The Great Gatsby“ and “The Dark Knight Rises.”
But she’s not happy with just acting: the Harvard-educated star (yeah, she’s the movie star referred to in “The Social Network“) moved into producing in recent years, with the Sundance flick “Hesher” and “No Strings Attached,” she’s murmured about making her feature directorial debut in the near-future (having helmed one of the better sections of the terrible “New York I Love You“), and now, as the LA Times have revealed, she’s currently shopping a script that she’s co-written to studios.
“BYO (Bring Your Own),” a raunchy comedy co-written with Portman’s college pal Laura Moses (a former assistant to Doug Liman), is described as a female take on “Superbad,” and follows two single twentysomethings who throw a party where each female invitee has to bring an eligible man with them.
Portman will star and produce, and apparently studio executives have been told that fellow hot-property Anne Hathaway has expressed interest in taking the other lead role — a fairly enticing prospect, as Hathaway’s considerable comic chops have for the most part been somewhat wasted in the likes of “Bride Wars” and “Valentine’s Day“
As far as we can tell, there’s no director yet attached to the project, and it’s still looking for a home, having already been turned down by a handful of studios. This last point is the main thing that gives us pause — every studio in town is looking to cast Hathaway and Portman in projects, so to turn down a script with both actors attached perhaps suggests that the script isn’t yet up to scratch.
But there may be other factors at work there, and we’re sure that the film will find a home somewhere. Neither Portman or Hathaway have picked a new project as yet, so this could conceivably move ahead fairly quickly, although both are in the running for Christopher Nolan‘s “The Dark Knight Rises,” among others. We shall see…
