Brad Pitt's Plan B Hires Writer For 'The Big Short,' Sean Connery Unretires, Lake Bell Bails On 'Scream 4'

We reported this earlier this year as a “maybe,” but now it is confirmed– Brad Pitt and his company Plan-B are moving ahead with Michael Lewis’ “The Big Short,” a book on about the 2008 financial meltdown. Pitt has hired Charles Randolph (“The Interpreter“) and paid him handsomely to adapt the book by the “Moneyball” author. Hollywood really seems to think films about our shitty economy will make big box office dough. Hmm, sounds like a genius move that will have audiences flocking to the box-office.

Elias Koteas, featured in “Shutter Island” as the creepy guy with the very painful scar on his face, has been cast in Darrel Roodt’s Winnie Mandela biopic “Winnie.” Koteas’s character De Vries plays a police officer who will stop at nothing to restrain the growing power of the black anti-apartheid activists, lead by Winnie. Maybe this will finally be the performance we’ve been waiting for, the one to top Koteas’s much revered take on Casey Jones in “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.”Sean Connery has pulled a Jay-Z and unretired, or at least sorta, lending his voice to the awful looking CG-animation “Sir Billi.” The Glasgow-based production sent Connery a DVD of the film, which was then stolen by his grandchildren and held hostage until Connery agreed to provide his voice for the movie. So little children are making career decisions for this experienced actor? At least he’s honest. When will Eddie Murphy come clean? Don’t expect the actor to return to the big screen as himself though.

Lake Bell tweeted that she had to leave “Scream 4” due to scheduling conflicts with other projects. All this means is another news update on who took her place for this completely unenticing film. Bell also precedes the tweet with “Sucks,” she was talking about the movie, right?

Jason Biggs returns from the shadows, teaming up with “Avatar” actor Joel David Moore in Stephen“Papa to Maggie and Jake” Gyllenhaal’s indie political comedy “Grassroots.” Biggs will play an out-of-work journalist who decides to spearhead the political campaign of a friend (played by Moore), a former pedicab driver. If it sounds funny now, just wait until you see it on DVD in three years.

The life of indie songwriter Vladimir Vysotsky, often labeled as the “Russian Bob Dylan,” will be made into a film by Pyotr Buslov, director of popular Russian film “Burner.” The influential singer, also an actor and a director, was an influence to the Soviet youth during the regime of Leonid Brezhnev. The film takes place during a time when Vyotsky suffered a heart attack and was determined to be clinically dead, though managed to recover afterwards. Though he’s likened to Bob Dylan, chances are the film will be a tad more conventional than the usual fare about our favorite Robert Zimmerman.