The Hollywood Reporter announces that Columbia has dumped seven figures on a mere spec by Stephen Belber called The Long Run.

The story centers on a journalist who helps exonerate a very charismatic death row inmate of a crime he didn't commit. The former inmate reforms and runs for public office, and the journalist leaves his post to join his campaign and follow him to political prominence. But he faces a crisis of conscience when he finds his successful friend may be guilty after all. Sounds intriguing, with a few shades of Truman Capote.

At this point, Will Smith is only attached to produce with his Overbrook banner and not star, but I sincerely hope he joins the cast. Smith is a fun actor and his big-budget epics are good on a summer night, but I wish he would embrace more scripts like this. He has one or two coming up, but the public still sees him as Mr. Blockbuster and groans if he is attached to any adaptation. How cool would it be to see him play the charismatic convict? I don't think Smith has ever really played anyone with a nasty edge before -- and that is how Oscars are won.

Just this morning our wonderful Editor-in-Chief Erik Davis blogged about Woody Harrelson joining that upcoming fantasy adventure called The Other Side. He's going to play both the father and son who fund a scholarship for the character that Katie Holmes is in talks to play. (I imagine she'll take it -- with the Jason Lee Scientology camaraderie and all, Cruise has got to approve!) But that's not the only role(s) that Woody is adding to his diverse repertoire. Variety reports that he's joined Tape scribe Stephen Belber's upcoming romcom Management, which Steve Zahn and Jennifer Aniston already joined this past summer.

The pic is about a traveling art saleswoman (Aniston), who has a brief fling with an assistant motel manager (Zahn). This romantic interlude inspires the guy to follow her on her travels across the US. Now, if you're like me, you were thinking that the movie needed a yogurt mogul, right? Well have no fear -- Woody has signed on to make that happen. He's going to play Aniston's ex boyfriend, who is also, as I stated above, a yogurt mogul. How Belber came up with that profession, above all others, is beyond me, but I have this feeling Harrelson can pull it off. How he fits into the story, well, that's what confuses me. I could see if she was a traveling yogurt saleswoman, but she deals in art. I guess every great stalker just needs to be balanced by the man who gives you yogurt.

I'm a complete fence-sitter when it comes to Jennifer Aniston. I'm no big fan of her mainstream films, and could do without them, but I happen to like some of her indie work, like Mike White's dysfunctional flick, The Good Girl. (Although man, I know I'm not the only one who thinks we could do without Derailed...what were they thinking!?) Now she's got a new romcom on the way called Management. She will play a traveling saleswoman who sells cheap art to small companies and motels. When she has a fling with an assistant motel manager (played by Steve Zahn), things get tricky because he starts to follow her around the U.S. (What's with the stalking-across-the-country films lately?) Now, before you groan -- this might, just might, actually be good. Or, at least, decent.

The film will be playwright/screenwriter Stephen Belber's directorial debut, and he wrote the script. He has not only worked on The Laramie Project, but he's the pen behind Tape. Did you ever catch that flick? It is a simple, and intriguing Richard Linklater indie movie starring Ethan Hawke, Uma Thurman and Robert Sean Leonard as three old friends in a motel room who rehash past traumas. It's got a hell of a lot more depth than a romcom, so I can only hope that some of it will carry over, making this more than just the next kiss-kiss, laugh-laugh movie.