Superbad director signs for Brad Pitt, Natalie Portman comedy

Back when SPIDER-MAN 4 imploded and Sony announced they were moving forward on a reboot of the franchise, I openly lobbied for Greg Mottola (SUPERBAD, ADVENTURELAND) to be taken seriously as a candidate to direct the new film. He’s done fantastic work with coming-of-age stories (as evidenced by the two movies I name-dropped earlier) and his work on the upcoming comedy PAUL was evidence he could handle some heavy CG work (the title character is all Seth Rogen mo-cap).

Sadly Sony never looked past Mark Webb for the gig (though I’m optimistic he’ll do a fine job) but Mottola isn’t slowing down. He’s signed on to write and direct IMPORTANT ARTIFACTS, the Brad Pitt/Natalie Portman romantic comedy set up at Paramount. Normally the words “romantic comedy” make me cringe a little on the inside but with Mottola, Pitt and Portman involved, you can bet this will be anything other than the traditional Kate Hudson rom-com.

Mottola will base his script off the Leanne Shapton book “Important Artifacts and Personal Property From the Collection of Lenore Doolan and Harold Morris, Including Books, Street Fashion and Jewelry.” It’s a fictional book framed as an auction catalog of mementos and keepsakes from the failed relationship between a photographer (Pitt) and a food writer (Portman).

It’s a clever way to go about writing a romance story and I’m interested to see how Mottola attacks this from a visual standpoint. No word yet on when filming might begin but it would seem to be at least a year away (Mottola is still in heavy post-production on PAUL, which doesn’t have a set release date yet.)