Jason Reitman has officially signed on to team up with Jim Carrey on a comedy titled Pierre Pierre (yay!) for Fox Atomic (barf). You first heard about this project on /Film in early December 2007, before Juno became a monster hit at the box office.

Pierre Pierre was ranked the 11th hottest screenplay in Hollywood in the Black List, an annual poll of 150 development executives and high-level assistants. Here is what I wrote about the project in December:

“Fox Searchlight paid close to a million dollars upfront for the screenplay by Edwin Cannistraci & Frederick Seton. Described as simular to Bruno/Borat, the story follows a “self-indulgent, lazy, French nihilist who is transporting a stolen Mona Lisa from Paris to London.” Through the journey, “he comes to love his home country again.” Jason Reitman (Juno, Thank You For Smoking) was in talks to direct, with Jim Carrey in talks to star.”

Well the project is now set up at Fox Atomic (boo!) with a budget pegged at $13 million, and is being prepped as a potential vehicle after the possible actors strike. So this will not be Jason Reitman’s next film, and I’m sure we’ll get an announcement on that soon enough. Reitman is also producing Jennifer’s Body, starring Megan Fox, directed by Karen Kusama, from a script by Oscar winning screenwriter Diablo Cody, also set up at Fox Atomic.

Jason, I loved Thank You For Smoking, and was one of the biggest cheerleaders of Juno in the webspace, but please please, get as far away from Fox Atomic as fast as you can. Go back to Searchlight.

Discuss: Jim Carrey as a self-indulgent French nihilist transporting a stolen painting? Does that even sound like a Jason Reitman movie?