Tommy Lee Jones is close to a deal to make Paramount Pictures' action-thriller "Double Jeopardy" his next starring role. The Bruce Beresford-helmed pic is skedded for a July start.
Jones' paycheck is considerably higher than the $10 million he earned for "U.S. Marshals," sources said.
Jones plays a probation officer who must track down a female ex-con. She's planning to commit the crime she was falsely accused of: killing the former husband who faked his own death and framed her in a life insurance scam.
The filmmakers are now casting the female role, which Jodie Foster was, at one time, set to play.
"Jeopardy" is based on a script by the writing team of Douglas Cook and David Weisberg ("The Rock"). Vet scribe Robert Benton is currently penning a rewrite. Leonard Goldberg is producing.
Jones is expected to follow "Jeopardy" with Par's military courtroom drama "Rules of Engagement."
That film, which will likely roll in the fall, is to be directed by William Friedkin and scripted by James Webb. Scott Rudin is producing.
Jones also is attached to direct and possibly star in a film based on James Lee Burke's Cajun cop novel "Dixie City Jam" for Disney. At Sony he's doing a rewrite on "Blood Meridian," based on Cormac McCarthy's dark Western novel, which he may direct and/or star in.
Jones, currently onscreen in Warner Bros.' "U.S. Marshals," will next be heard as the voice of a tough-talking toy commando in DreamWorks' animation/live action combo "Small Soldiers."
Jones won an Academy Award for his supporting role in 1993's "The Fugitive" and was Oscar nominated in 1992 for "JFK."
(Chris Petrikin contributed to this report)
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