Will Smith, Russell Crowe Agree to Flying Horse Movie

Akiva Goldsman's years of writing unremarkable, lazy, cloying Akiva Goldsman scripts has earned the screenwriter more than just tons of money and an inexplicable Oscar to answer to his multiple Razzie nominations. It's also earned him some powerful connections. And according to Vulture, he's now cashing those in, having "called in every favor he had" to reportedly secure Will Smith and Russell Crowe for his directorial debut, an adaptation of the 1983 novel Winter's Tale.

Crowe owes Goldsman big time for peppering the script for A Beautiful Mind with such (AWARD-)winning lines as, "Perhaps it is good to have a beautiful mind, but an even greater gift is to discover a beautiful heart," while Smith is indebted to the writer for crafting two of our most unmemorable "Will Smith, in the first person, fights a bunch of the same thing" movies, I, Robot and I Am Legend. But neither of the A-listers will pay off their debt by taking the lead in Goldsman's film--perhaps because the film involves a flying horse in a fantasy Manhattan, but who knows. Instead each will take supporting role in the film.

The film is said to center on "a petty thief who falls in love with the dying girl who inhabits the house he's just burgled and the gangster boss bent on killing him," and Crowe will be playing the supporting role of Pearly Soames, said gangster boss; Smith will play a judge. The part of the girl and the all-important lead role of the thief have yet to be cast, but considering both Val Kilmer and George Clooney are forever servile to Goldsman for lending his delicate touch to their respective Batman scripts, shouldn't be too hard to lock it down.