Brad Pitt is going to be a busy boy for the next year or so. With Terence Malick’s The Tree of Life and baseball flick Moneyball already on his to-do-list, he’s also been linked to feuding-families pic, The Hatfields and McCoys. That’s according to Robert Duvall, anyway.

Speaking to Hollywood Elsewhere during press for Get Low, Duvall revealed that Crazy Heart helmer Scott Cooper had met with Pitt to discuss the project. He went on to claim that Pitt will be playing “the main guy”, while he himself will co-star.

Benjamin Button scribbler Eric Roth has supposedly written a script, while fans of Crazy Heart will be pleased to hear that T Bone Burnett has been approached to do the music.

Read more. Unconfirmed project.

Paramount isn’t letting the zombies off the lot just yet, renewing the option to make “World War Z,” a bigscreen adaptation of Max Brooks’ best-selling post-apocalyptic tome about a worldwide infestation of flesh-eating zombies.
Filmmaker Marc Forster is developing the project, while Brad Pitt’s Plan B shingle is producing.

In his tome, Brooks — son of Mel Brooks and Anne Bancroft — tells the tale of a researcher for the U.N. Postwar Commission who interviews survivors from all over the world in order to put together a post-mortem on a war that destroyed every country around the globe.

Brooks, attending C2E2 last week in Chicago, told MTV.com that Matthew Michael Carnahan is doing a rewrite of Michael Straczynski’s adapated script for Paramount.

Read more.

This year’s best sustainable buildings include an elementary school, two universities and a New Orleans home designed for Brad Pitt’s Make It Right Foundation, according to the American Institute of Architects.

Each year, the AIA picks 10 buildings that show how design can reduce environmental impacts by reusing materials, connecting to public transit, conserving water and energy and improving indoor air quality.

The “Special No. 9 House,” shown above, was designed to provide storm-resistant, affordable and sustainable housing for New Orleans residents displaced by Hurricane Katrina. The 1,520 square foot, single-family home is poised for mass production as part of Pitt’s Make It Right Foundation.

Read more.

Add Brad Pitt to the list of celebrities grounded from appearances due to the volcano.

The actor was scheduled to appear this evening in New York at a tribute dinner, sponsored by the government of Tanzania, in honor of his brother Doug Pitt’s humanitarian work.

But Brad Pitt was traveling from Europe – or trying to. His plane has been grounded, like thousands of others, thanks to the power of the volcano beneath Iceland’s Eyjafjallajokull glacier.

Doug Pitt, a professional photojournalist, is a director of Africa 6000 International, which has been active in supplying fresh water to those in need, according to its web site.

Read more.

“Adventureland” writer-director Greg Mottola has been hired by Paramount to write the screenplay for its adaptation of “Important Artifacts.”

A little over a year ago, the studio won an auction for the rights to Leanne Shapton’s book — full title: “Important Artifacts and Personal Property From the Collection of Lenore Doolan and Harold Morris, Including Books, Street Fashion and Jewelry” — which Farrar Straus & Giroux had just published.

Brad Pitt and Natalie Portman quickly became attached to star in what Mottola will spin into a romantic comedy. The stars are also producing through their respective banners, Plan B and Handsomecharlie Films.

Read more.

Terrence Malick’s Tree of Life, which stars Pitt, was long expected to make the cut, but was suspiciously absent when the entrants were announced at a press conference this morning. Festival director Thierry Fremaux said that he saw a rough cut of the film a few months ago but that it was not quite ready for the curtain to rise.

Read more. Thanks Busra.

Terrence Malick’s Tree Of Life is rumoured to be featured in the Cannes Film Festival line-up for this year that’s set to be announced tomorrow – but you’d be hard-pressed to find anyone who knows much about the film. That’s why we are thrilled to be able to share a few tidbits that Brad Pitt let slip about the film he calls “a bit ambitious”, which may enlighten you a little further.

When we asked him if this was a science fiction film (yes, even that is in doubt), Pitt replied, “Well, in a way. It’s this little tiny story of a kid growing up in the 50s with a mother who’s grace incarnate and a father who’s oppressive in nature. So he is negotiating his way through it, defining who he’s gonna be when he grows up. And that is juxtaposed with a little, tiny micro-story of the cosmos, from the beginning of the cosmos to the death of the cosmos. So that’s where the sci-fi – or the sci-fact – comes in.”

Read more. Thanks Busra.

As promised a lil while ago: a new main design for SimplyBrad.com! I love it. It has been designed and coded by the wonderful Tran from TXX Productions. The photoshoot used is from 2007 and was featured in V magazine. One of my favorites. Alright, hope you like it as much as I do.

Age hasn’t withered the star power of the Cannes Film Festival. The 63rd edition, from May 12-23, should deliver appearances by Brad Pitt and Sean Penn, whose multi-generational saga, Tree of Life for Days of Heaven director Terence Malick, is being touted as a shoo-in entry.

Read more. This is unconfirmed.

Columbia Pictures is locking in a July start date for the Bennett Miller-directed Moneyball. The picture is close to getting a green light after the above the line participants adjusted their deals to bring the film’s budget down from near $60 million to somewhere in the vicinity of $47 million. The budget gyrations have played out over the last month, and the effort was helped by the delivery of the latest rewrite by Aaron Sorkin that has everybody excited about making the film. The participants seemed to take to heart the message of the Michael Lewis Moneyball book, which was about how Oakland A’s general manager Billy Beane hurt his playing career becoming a bonus baby phenom who signed for the money, and then remade himself as a baseball executive who fielded winning A’s teams with a fraction of the payroll that rivals were spending.

Read more.