As we all know, Bateman’s movie career has been climbing steadily upward with high profile roles in films such as The Kingdom and Juno as well as the upcoming Hancock and State of Play.

What many might not know, however, is that Bateman was tapped by Fox to direct the pilot for “Do Not Disturb,” which scored a fall series berth on the Fox network. He’s also providing one of the lead voices on the Fox animated series “Sit Down, Shut Up,” which 20th is co-producing with Sony Pictures TV. (The fate of that show is unclear, however, as writers have been told “Sit Down” won’t be a WGA show.)

Under this new deal, Bateman will give 20th first crack at anything he develops with his F+A Prod. label. Bateman said he’s already kicking around several ideas and plans to meet with writers in the coming weeks.

Then came the writer’s strike. Then came Brad Pitt’s exit due to script problems (his mostly).

Today we learn that Ed Norton has dropped out of the project as well and will be replaced by Ben Affleck. My, how far we have fallen from the lofty heights from whence we came.

Norton’s departure came as a direct result of Pitt’s problems late last month and his eventual exit from the project. Pitt was replaced with Russell Crowe which wasn’t a bad trade. Unfortunately, the time lost negotiating Pitt’s exit and Crowe’s contract forced the delay of the start of production from mid-November to sometime in January. Norton had already committed to follow “State of Playâ€Â? by playing the dual leads in “Leaves of Grass,â€Â? an independent comedy written and to be directed by Tim Blake Nelson. Norton is producing that picture with his Class 5 Films partner Bill Migliore, and Nelson. As a producer of the film there wasn’t much of a chance he would be able to drop out of that production even if he had wanted to.

Norton and Affleck’s reps worked with the studio to create an exit plan for Norton and an entrance plan (so to speak) for Affleck. So now we are left with a Ben Affleck to fill the acting shoes of an Ed Norton…hardly seems like a fair trade.

The studio isn’t out of the woods yet either. Helen Mirren also had a stop date so that she could star with Joe Pesci in the Taylor Hackford directed “Love Ranch.â€Â? They are trying to negotiate and work it out, but they could still lose yet another high profile cast member before it’s over.

I wonder how Russell Crowe is feeling about his decision to take over Brad Pitt’s role now?