Zeta-Jones, Clooney in 'Intolerable' Pairing
Source: yahoo.com

By Michael Fleming

NEW YORK (Variety) - Catherine Zeta-Jones will team with George Clooney in ``Intolerable Cruelty,'' a black comedy that will be the next project for Joel and Ethan Coen.

Joel Coen will direct the Universal project, with Ethan Coen aboard as a producer. The Coens are currently in theaters with the Billy Bob Thornton film noir ``The Man Who Wasn't There.''

Despite the dark overtones in the ``Cruelty'' script, Universal made the film a priority because it's a Howard Hawks-style old-Hollywood glamour picture pairing Clooney and Zeta-Jones as bitter rivals who fall in love.

Clooney plays a divorce lawyer so skilled that he manages to keep a client from losing his fortune to his ex-wife even though he was caught in the clinches with another woman. The ex-wife, played by Zeta-Jones, is so angry that she lays out a plan to separate the lawyer from his fortune. That plan is complicated when romantic sparks fly.

Zeta-Jones' William Morris agents were near a deal for her to star in the film after she completes ``Chicago,'' a Miramax musical that co-stars Renee Zellweger and Richard Gere, with filming to begin in December for a Christmas 2002 release.

Clooney also is preoccupied with a Miramax film: He's making his directing debut with ``Confessions of a Dangerous Mind,'' a comedy in which he co-stars with Sam Rockwell, Drew Barrymore and Julia Roberts.

Originally written by Robert Ramsey and Matthew Stone, ''Intolerable Cruelty'' is a project that had such directors as Ron Howard, Andrew Bergman and Jonathan Demme circling. The Coens committed when their attempts to direct Brad Pitt in ``To the White Sea'' sank.