VivaSync

P and P: Published just last month, Leanne Shapton’s Important Artifacts and Personal Property From the Collection of Lenore Doolan and Harold Morris, Including Books, Street Fashion, and Jewelry has been optioned by Paramount, with Brad Pitt and Natalie Portman set to produce and star in the romantic-comedy adaptation. The book takes the form of an estate-auction catalogue, with entries depicting the course of the now-expired relationship between Morris, a photographer in his forties, and Doolan, a food columnist in her late twenties. Movies based on estate-auction catalogues! Whoo!!! [Variety]

Mean Corporations: A few more big names are joining Ben Affleck in the independently financed drama The Company Men. Kevin Costner will play the Average Joe brother of Affleck’s corporate hot-shot character, who hooks him up with a construction job after Affleck is downsized; Tommy Lee Jones will play a senior partner in the firm who has a hard time swallowing the greedy actions of his partners. Any indication that this corporation does anything other than fire people and be greedy is notably absent, leading us to wonder if this screenplay was written by an angry thirteen-year-old who just found about the WTO. [Variety]

Not As Exciting: Freddie Prinze Jr.’s also coming back! To ABC, where his 2005 sitcom Freddie aired (it’s okay, we’re pretty sure FPJ’s forgotten about it too.) He’ll star in No Heroics — a comedy about a troupe of B-list superheroes, including one that can freeze small objects — as Bradly, a.k.a. Ultimatum, an A-list superhero. Where has Freddie been, you ask? Why, writing scripts for WWE, of course. [HR]

And Wetness is the Essence of Beauty: Brian Grazer will produce Merman, a romantic comedy written by Jennifer Abu Hollander, for Universal Pictures. The plot revolves around the titular merman, who has to come to shore to win back his mermaid fiancée, who left him for a guy with legs. Also important to note here: moisture is the essence of wetness. [Variety]

Jo Bro: The Jonas Brothers’ as-of-yet untitled fourth album is due June 15, and it may find them more powerful than ever. According to Nick Jonas, the trio has discovered metaphors and will have no qualms using them “to kind of mask a literal thing that happens to us.” [Billboard]

Not One Rockapella Reference!: NBC is fully prepared to air the one thing no one wants to see: The Sing-Off, the first ever a cappella reality contest, in which groups will battle each other for a Sony Music record contract. NBC, honest to God, cites “the nineties success of Boyz II Men” as inspiration for the program. Other things inspiring The Sing-Off: the back-to-back Super Bowl wins of the Dallas Cowboys; the Oslo Accords. [Variety]

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