Jason Reitman courts George Clooney for Up in the Air

With Juno, Jason Reitman struck the kind of lightning-rod success that can’t be bought. He took on the film after finding modest success with Thank You for Smoking, his debut, and by the time its run was over, he had become the man behind the word-of-mouth smash of 2007 and a surprise Oscar nominee.

With that kind of overnight exposure, it should come as no surprise that he passed Juno scribe Diablo Cody’s possessed-cheerleader flick Jennifer’s Body off to a different director. Instead he'll helm the more commercially friendly Up in the Air, a dramedy about a man who specializes in corporate downsizing and whose chief goal in life is to collect frequent flier miles. And it looks like he made the right choice: he has George Clooney in talks for the lead role.

Reitman, whose fortunes appear limitless, has long been interested in the project, an adaptation of the novel by Walter Kirn. If the deal goes through, Clooney's addition will officially make it an A-list production, the only kind we can likely expect to see from Reitman for some time.

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