For the longest time -- until earlier this week, in fact -- I was convinced that Jason Reitman's next directing project was Diablo Cody's horror flick Jennifer's Body. Maybe that's because at a Team Juno roundtable interview last year, the two of them talked about it like it was their project (which it is, sort of -- Reitman's producing). Anyway, it's actually Karyn "Aeon Flux" Kusama who is directing Cody's follow-up, while Reitman is moving on to helm an adaptation of Walter Kirn's Up in the Air.

I strongly recommend the novel, which is a terrific satire about a perpetually transitory businessman obsessed with collecting a million frequent flyer miles. I liked it better than Kirn's more popular Thumbsucker which was already adapted into a film. The movie could be very funny in the hands of a guy like Reitman -- sharp and insightful. It should be closer in tone to Thank You for Smoking than to Juno.

Reitman has already shifted the project into a higher gear by setting his sights on George Clooney, who's in talks to star as the narcissistic protagonist. While I'm pretty sure the character is quite a bit younger than the actor, Clooney has precisely the effortless comic chops this project needs. His profile won't hurt, either.

Above: Rainn Wilson lets his hair down for The Rocker.

Fans of Rainn Wilson's offbeat, hilarious and strangely endearing performance as Dwight Schrute on NBC's The Office might expect him to transition into film work with straightforward comedy, and The Rocker confirms that suspicion. However, they might not realize the serious professional motives behind his choice. In the movie, directed by Peter Cattaneo (The Full Grown Monty), Wilson plays a grown-up dolt named Fish with a scary fixation on classic rock. Abandoned by the band Vesuvius in his teens -- before they became a commercial phenomenon -- Fish spends the next twenty years working deadbeat jobs and wishing things happened differently. Naturally, he gets a second chance: When the opportunity rolls around to drum for his nephew's high school, Fish goes for it. Ageism and slapstick humor ensue.

While not exactly a classic, The Rocker proves Wilson has the charisma to carry a movie. The script could use some polishing, but Wilson manages to play a completely dysfunctional human being without ever becoming an annoyance. It's a testament to his skill as an actor with calculated timing. The humor emerges from the naturalism of his performances, which make you believe in the outlandish characters he portrays. In a conversation with Cinematical recently, Wilson elaborated on his particular strategies as his career advances, reminisced about his days as a New York theater actor, and shed some light on a few upcoming projects.

Here's the set up: Folks have been a bit puzzled over the alarming rise in teen pregnancies at North Shore High School in Gloucester, Massachusetts. In the past year alone, 17 girls have tested positive for a little bun in the oven, and officials (as well as school administrators) were baffled as to why, all of a sudden, the girls in Gloucester were all sorts of knocked up. Crazy, right? And weird. I'll fully admit that to wind up with 17 girls pregnant in one high school at the same time seems a bit strange, especially when it's four times the level from the year before. Four times!

Completely baffled, officials turned to the only feasible explanation: Blame the movies. And when they looked around at popular movies within the past year -- whaddya know -- there was an Oscar winner with teen pregnancy scribbled all over it. Juno ... written by that teen pregnancy supporter Diablo Cody, and directed by a pregnant teen himself, Jason Reitman. Of course! The ridiculous rise in pregnancies had to do with Juno -- a film that made teen pregnancy look about as comfortable and enjoyable as stuffing yourself in a piece of old luggage and rolling down a mountain. There's the answer!

But should we talk to the girls? Maybe see if there's another explanation for all this? Nah. Leave it all on Juno ... after all, Fox Searchlight didn't hand out condoms outside movie theaters screening Juno (I sure as heck never got any condoms!), so, really, it's their fault for not paying closer attention. Right?

Ahem, and that's when the twist comes in ...

Ever since director Jason Reitman knocked one out of the ballpark with Juno, folks have been itching to see what the man takes on next. Yes, he's taken to producing a few things (like the Diablo Cody-penned Jennifer's Body), but what, exactly, will be his next directorial project. Well, according to Latino Review, they've heard from a source that the younger Reitman will direct an adaptation of the novel Up in the Air, written by Thumbsucker author Walter Kirn. Apparently, some digging reveals that Jason's dad Ivan Reitman is already executive producing the film after picking up a script from Sheldon Turner back in 2003.

Recently, Reitman told MTV that he was "writing something" and would "direct it at the end of the year." When pushed to reveal something, anything, Reitman said "it's a comedy and a drama [book adaptation]. Think Thank You For Smoking, but instead of political it's corporate." And if you look at the synopsis for Up in the Air over on Amazon (I've never read the book personally), it fits right into the above description.

Here's a taste: "Officially, Bingham is a management consultant, specializing in the lugubrious field of career transition counseling (i.e., he fires people for a living). But what Kirn's airborne protagonist is really doing is pursuing his own private passion, his great white whale: accumulating one million miles in his frequent-flyer account. As Up in the Air opens, Bingham has set out on a final, epic traveling jag. He intends to visit eight cities in six days, thereby achieving his own vision of Nirvana somewhere over Sioux Falls, South Dakota."

No official word on this one yet, but the pieces definitely seem to be coming together. Anyone read the book? Is it a good fit for Reitman?

UPDATE: LR provides the following update: I just got off the horn with Jason Reitman's publicist. She did in fact confirm that Jason is adapting the book but that no deal is YET in place for him to direct.

Here's a little something to take with you into the weekend: While on Howard Stern recently, Jason Reitman spilled a few beans on the upcoming horror/comedy he's producing called Jennifer's Body. Now, one would expect that with a film called Jennifer's Body, at some point we'd actually get to see, well, Jennifer's body. Good news everyone (if everyone included horny males between the ages of, say, 13 and 84) -- Reitman says Jennifer (played by Transformers hottie Megan Fox) will be going topless for a scene in the film; one that calls for her character to lure an unsuspecting teen male into the woods.

Unfortunately, you guys -- and some girls, I imagine -- won't be able to see her two friends because her hair will be covering those areas. As the Diablo Cody-penned script probably reads, "Totally unfair, square chair!" Starring Fox, Amanda Seyfried, Adam Brody, J.K. Simmons and Johnny Simmons, Jennifer's Body centers on a possessed cheerleader (Fox) who specializes in killing her male classmates (specifically, those who follow her naked body into the woods). As things spiral out of control, her best friend Needy (Really? Needy?) steps up to try to save the day.

Jennifer's Body arrives in theaters next year.

[via Shock]

Here's something for you Justice League fans to chew on, and wonder what might have been. Jason Reitman revealed on Howard Stern that he was offered the director's chair for Justice League Is Mortal, and turned it down. Let's hear from the man himself, thanks to Slashfilm:

"I had to sign something, they send me the script and it comes on this spy paper which cant be xeroxed. They have a time when I have to have the script back to them and the script is fine and I could be spending ... What am I going to do with Justice League of America? So, basically I'll make a movie that is not as good as X-Men, then I'll be the guy who made a movie not as good as X-Men." Later in the show, he revealed that he would have been given a budget of $150 million.

No, this isn't an acting gig for the two directors, nor is it a new collaborative effort to come after a little Zack and Miri porno. It is actual, real-life sports blogging. Yahoo/AP reports that both Jason Reitman and Kevin Smith will join The Hills' Lauren Conrad, and country music star Dierks Bentley to write blogs professing their love of hockey for the National Hockey League's website. This is cool and all, but where's Mike Myers?

Well, at least there's the Juno director and a man who loves watching kids say "aboot." Reitman says: "I'd come to really love the game and I was just a little upset because I felt there was more of an opportunity, for particularly Americans, to know about the game and follow the game." For the director, who is a fan of two teams that didn't make the playoffs (the Canucks and the Kings), he plans to "write a kind of mythical blog about what the Canucks and Kings would be doing had they still been in. In my version, for the first time in NHL history, the Canucks and the Kings will be the first two Western conference teams to actually meet in the Stanley Cup finals." There is no word on what Smith's plans for the blog are, but considering the fact that the filmmaker is an old-school blogger, it should be fun.

Now that the girls are all lined up to star in Jennifer's Body, it's time to bring in some of those hottie boys to populate the flick. The Hollywood Reporter tells us Adam Brody has hopped onboard the dark comedy/horror (written by everyone's favorite stripper-turned-Oscar winner, Diablo Cody), where he'll play Nikolai, "a hot lead singer of an up-and-coming band with a penchant for evil." Jeepers! Also joining the cast is Juno's dad, J.K. Simmons, who'll play Mr. Wroblewski, a high school science teacher.

Jennifer's Body marks a reunion for Juno's Jason Reitman and Diablo Cody, the former of which will produce, not direct. That job has gone to Karyn Kusama. Already starring in the film is Transformer's Megan Fox; she'll play a cheerleader who becomes possessed by a demon and starts feeding off the boys in her town ... while still finding time to shovel out a good amount of pop culture references, one imagines. Amanda Seyfried will play Jennifer's best friend, and the one who's placed in charge of protecting the community. I'm looking forward to a badass teen horror/comedy with females in the lead. It's about damn time we get a female-centric scary movie that doesn't involve half-nekked females being tortured (though with Megan Fox in the lead, I wouldn't mind one scene ... or several ... but I didn't just say that). Jennifer's Body is due out next year.

It's a familiar tale: Hitch a falling star to a rising talent ... and see what happens. This week's iteration comes in the form of a Variety story that sees Juno director Jason Reitman teaming with Jim Carrey on a new comedy titled Pierre Pierre. The film -- budgeted at a fairly-modest $13 million -- is pitched as the tale of a "self-indulgent French nihilist who transports a stolen painting from Paris to London." In his heyday -- Ace Ventura, The Truman Show, Liar, Liar -- Carrey's salary alone would have exceeded the proposed budget of Pierre Pierre; however, as any viewer of The Majestic, The Number 23 or Fun with Dick and Jane can tell you, those bright days are far in the past.

Pierre, Pierre is going to be released under the Fox Atomic specialty banner, and also features a script from first-time writers Edwin Cannistraci and Frederick Seton. I guess the question I'm pondering is which Jim Carrey will show up -- the tired, makeup-coated hack of Dr. Seuss' How the Grinch Stole Christmas and Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events or the more interested, more invested Carrey of The Truman Show and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind? And does new talent Reitman have the skills, and vision, to coax the latter kind of performance out of an actor many consider a fading funnyman?

Honest to blog, folks! Even though director Jason Reitman has said there will not be a sequel to the mega-hit Juno, the script for the sequel was written and -- get this -- you can own it for a crisp $100,001.00. Oh yes, my friends, the sequel to Juno (Juno 2 or Juno She's Pregnant Again?) is now available (in script form) on eBay. Unfortunately, Diablo Cody did not write the script -- someone by the name of screenwriter_in_paradise is the mind behind this masterpiece.

Thanks to Slashfilm, we get the following hilarious quote on the eBay page: "Juno grossed over $130 million domestically. I have written the sequel. If Mr. Mudd, Mandate or Fox Searchlight don't buy than it is available to any legitimate production company that wants to jump on the bandwagon. Your lawyers will tell you the names will have to be changed, so we will call this 111 page script Juno-like or Junoesque. A 4-page sample is available via e-mail." And how is Fox Searchlight not all over this friggin' winner right now? Searchlight? Are you out there? Were you aware that a sequel to Juno is already written ... and available on eBay? Why is this not in development yet? I'd definitely be interested in reading that 4-page sample, if only to see how it stacks up against the Juno sequel I wrote last week. Don't worry, now that I know the starting price, I'll offer mine up for only $99,002.00. Beat THAT screenwriter_in_paradise!