Greed isn't so good for Ben Affleck.
Hollywood is looking to turn the economic meltdown into box-office gold, with Affleck in negotiations to topline The Company Men, as a victim of Wall Street's corporate downsizing.
ER's Emmy-winning writer-producer John Wells will make his feature-directing debut on the project, per the Hollywood Reporter, based on his own screenplay.
Next up for Affleck is the romcom He's Just Not That Into You, followed by the political thriller State of Play and the Mike Judge romp Extract.
In the day's other top deal doings:
- Billy Crystal is ready for a visit from the Tooth Fairy, according to Variety, joining Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson, Ashley Judd, Julie Andrews and Stephen Merchant in the Fox comedy. It will be Crystal's first live-action studio film since 2002's Analyze That.
- Heather Graham heads to Sin City for The Hangover. Justin Bartha is also joining the comedy from Todd Phillips (Old School), about three hapless buddies (Bradley Cooper, Ed Helms and Zach Galifianakis) who hit the Strip for a bachelor party only to lose the groom (Bartha). Graham is a mysterious local who may or may not know his whereabouts.
- Six Feet Under alum Lauren Ambrose has been tapped to headline Unorthodox, alongside Adam Kaufman. The CBS teleflick is an offbeat love story of a doctor caught up in the customs of Hasidic jews. Mercedes Ruehl, Susie Essman and Ricki Lake costar.
- Bruce Willis is planning to make his helming debut later this year on the psychological thriller Three Stories About Joan, in which he'll also play a supporting role. The film, starring Camilla Belle and Kieran Culkin, centers on a young woman at three different stages in her life who suffers through family tragedies that cause her to go mad.
- Some Broadway producers are hoping to make a killing with American Psycho, acquiring the stage rights to Bret Easton Ellis' satirical tale of murder and mayhem on Wall Street. There's no director, book writer or composer yet, but the brain trust still hopes to raise curtains by 2010.
- TNT is partnering with Lincoln for RPM, a series of two-minute crime thriler Webisodes that will also air within the commercial breaks of four prime-time Law & Order episodes Oct. 21-29. Johnathon Schaech stars as an ex-detective out to solve a slaying, tracking down the perp with the aid of his trusty Lincoln MKS.