Diaz a ‘Keeper’ for Cassavetes

Cameron Diaz is suiting up to play the lead role of a lawyer (if this is not a comedy then this sounds like a stretch to me) in the book to screen adaptation of My Sister's Keeper. Scripted by Jeremy Leven and to be produced by Mark Johnson, Nick Cassavetes will direct the project for New Line Cinema.

Based on the Jodi Picoult novel, Diaz would play a former defense attorney who returns to the courtroom to defend herself and her husband when they are sued by their 13-year-old daughter for emancipation. The girl was conceived as a genetic match with the hope she could prolong her cancer-ridden sister's life.

The romantic drama The Notebook brought some box-office backbone and the maligned distribution situation with Alpha Dog (New Line eventually gave up on the film and Universal took a shot at it in theatres) means that this deal makes it three in a row for the Cassavetes/New Line cinema relationship.  

Over the years, Cassavetes has placed many projects on the backburner (he is currently or was once attached to such projects as Crossroaders, Going After Cacciato, Steinbeck's Point of View, Bombing Harvey, God Is a Bullet, The Pirate Hunter).

Diaz is currently working on What Happens in Vegas… and The Box. Shooting for My Sister's Keeper begins early next year.