Sean Penn knows he's a 'Genius'

By Adnan Tezer Aug 5, 2010, 3:05 GMT

Sean Penn is in talks to play famed literary editor Max Perkins in the biopic "Genius."

According to The Hollywood Reporter, Bill Pohlad, the producer-financier behind River Road Entertainment, will direct.

Pohlad and Penn have a working history, with Pohlad having produced and helped finance "Into the Wild," which Penn directed in 2007.

Pohlad also is an executive producer on Doug Liman’s political thriller "Fair Game" and Terrence Malick's "Tree of Life," two upcoming films Penn stars in.

Pohlad hasn't directed a movie since the 1990 independent film "Old Explorers," which starred Jose Ferrer and James Whitmore.

John Logan wrote the script for "Genius," which adapts A. Scott Berg's 2008 biography, "Max Perkins: Editor of Genius."

Perkins, the eccentric editor-in-chief at the New York publishing house Scribner, oversaw the release of works by F. Scott Fitzgerald and Ernest Hemingway.

The film would focus on the relationship between Perkins and a young Thomas Wolfe.

River Road Entertainment will produce with Logan.

Penn will begin shooting later this month on "This Must Be the Place," a thriller about a retired rock star looking for an ex-Nazi war criminal who executed his father.