**Update: **Well, it took a little more than a year, but Roberts and Streep are officially signed to play matriarch Violet Weston and Barbara Fordham. John Wells is still directing and once he's gathered the rest of the cast, he aims to start making the thing this autumn.
Talk about a high profile pairing: Julia Roberts and Meryl Streep are in the middle of hammering out deals to co-star in Harvey Weinstein’s latest passion project, the adaptation of Pulitzer- and Tony-scooping play August: Osage County.
Originally written by Tracy Letts, August follows the troubled Weston Clan, whose matriarch Violet (the role Streep is eyeing) soothes her daily life with drugs and alcohol. Her oldest daughter Barbara Fordham (Roberts, if she signs), meanwhile, is in the middle of a marriage crisis as her husband is cheating on her with a college student.
As Violet’s habit of revealing big family secrets really starts to affect everyone around her, the disappearance of her husband brings even more painful issues bubbling to the surface as Barbara and her sisters return home to support their mother.
You can see that Weinstein is looking at this as potential Oscar bait, but he’s been involved with the play since the original stage production. And he’s brought in former TV mogul/director-turned-filmmaker John Wells to direct the film version, which will be based on a script by Letts herself.
Between this (which according to Deadline should be ready to shoot by next summer) and The Help, it looks like there are going to be more decent roles out there for women than usual. Expect the competition for the other main characters to be intense.