J.J. Abrams to Produce Pricey-Pitch Picked up by Paramount

J.J. Abrams will produce pricey pitch picked by Paramount... picked a pickled pepper. That's a whole bunch of P's for a whole bunch of cash.

J.J. Abrams and Bryan Burk's Bad Robot banner will be producing Paramount's recently acquired untitled feature pitch from screenwriters Aline Brosh McKenna and Simon Kinberg, in a pricey deal worth 2 million dollars.

While most other studios have shut down development spending for the rest of the year, Paramount has broke open the piggy bank on a pitch from an unlikely writing duo. McKenna and Kinberg are friends who recently worked together on a production rewrite of Fox's Steve Carell and Tina Fey comedy Date Night. McKenna has a made a name with comedic chick flicks like The Devil Wears Prada and 27 Dresses. While Kinberg has the action-drama cred with testosterone fueled pics like Guy Ritchie's upcoming Sherlock Holmes and Mr. and Mrs. Smith. But Kinberg loses the geek cred as a writer on stinkers like Jumper and  X-Men: The Last Stand.

Bad Robot honed the pitch with the unlikely duo, and Paramount called "dibs" on the project through their first-look deal with the banner.

Neither Paramount nor Bad Robot would disclose the plot, but Abrams says of the writers and the project:

These two writers couldn't be more different, the genres they write seem almost diametrically opposed. But they came to Bad Robot with a pitch that thrilled us. We feel extremely lucky to get to work with this amazing team.

Paramount and Bad Robot are familiar with McKenna, as they are producing his script Morning Glory, which is being directed by Roger Michell and stars Rachel McAdams, Harrison Ford and Diane Keaton.

With no insight into the plot at all(not even a genre) it's impossible to say whether or not it was worth $2 million. If Paramount thinks so, and J.J. Abrams is behind it, I'm guessing it's good... hoping it's good. But we'll just have to wait and see.

Source: Variety