Posted 5:09 PM by Gene

More in the annals of Hollywood illiteracy from The Book Standard:

Brad Pitt may have chosen Angelina Jolie, but Jennifer Aniston isn't going unwanted. She's slated to star with Meryl Streep in Wanted, a Warner Bros. feature to be adapted from Kim Wozencraft's novel, in which a female cop in Texas goes to prison after being framed for drug trafficking and teams with her peacenik cellmate in a plot to escape. Sheldon Turner will write the screenplay, and Plan B's Dede Gardner is set to produce. (Pitt hasn't completely split, though. Plan B is the production company he owns with Aniston.) Jennifer Jason Leigh starred in 1991's Rush, Peter Dexter's screen adaptation of Wozencraft's 1990 novel of the same name.

Starlet Scarlett Johannson will star in yet another literary adaptation (see Girl With a Pearl Earring, A Love Song for Bobby Long and the upcoming The Black Dahlia), this time in Forget About It, a romantic comedy from New Line Cinema about a woman who fakes amnesia in order to avoid her daily responsibilities. The film will be adapted by Elizabeth Kruger and Craig Shapiro from an unpublished manuscript by Caprice Crane. First set up in November 2003, the project will be produced by Kustom Entertainment's Tom Lassally, Cherry Road Films' Kendall Morgan, and Melanie Johansson. The executive producers are Kustom's Robyn Meisinger and Cherry Road's Bo Hyde.

The "gritty," "realistic" drama and the improbable romantic comedy have more in common than NEWS HACKS think. They can BOTH be unwatchable.

And here's the lead story today -- about an Indian Spider-Man. We can guess what the top publishing execs read -- IF THEY CAN.