Patton Oswalt Cast In Jason Reitman's 'Young Adult,' Patrick Wilson In Talks

Jason Reitman and Diablo Cody, the duo behind the camera on Juno (OK, two of many people behind the camera on Juno) are coming together once again to make a film called Young Adult, based on Cody's screenplay. The film is about a woman who returns to her high school town, where she tries to reconnect with (read: stalks) the guy she once dated. Trouble is: he's married with a new kid, and isn't all that interested.Charlize Theron is set to play the lead female role, and we'd supposed at one point that Josh Brolin would be the object of her affection. But now Patton Oswalt has taken a role and Patrick Wilson is in talks to join. Who would they play?

It doesn't take a genius to guess that Wilson would be the male lead, and from what we know of the script the first assumption is that Oswalt would be the overweight best friend to Theron's character.

I'm excited to see Oswalt do more serious acting along the lines of Big Fan, in which I thought he was surprisingly good. And I'm curious about the film as a whole, given that Diablo Cody has said that despite some humor, it is

pretty serious and fucked up. You don't get to see women be antiheroes that often, where it's like somebody like Mickey Rourke, who gets a comeback in 'The Wrestler.' It's rarer that you'll have a studio say, 'Let's have an actress come back and be ugly!'

To recap some previous info,

We're not talking Monster 'ugly' here — it's ugly in terms of character rather than appearance. And Buddy Slade, the guy Wilson might play, is described as attractive, but a mostly average suburban new dad. He's a little bit soft, and trying to live a pretty normal life. Brolin would have been perfect, but Wilson would work out fine. He could easily play into the idea that Theron's character decides to conceive of him as some sort of sensual idol without much of a problem.

Young Adult is in pre-production now and should be shooting by November. There still isn't any studio involvement for distribution, but I'd expect we'll hear news on that front before long. [THR]