Roles are locked up for Streep, Aniston

Jennifer Aniston and Meryl Streep are to star in ''Wanted," about a policewoman who is framed for drug trafficking, reports The Guardian newspaper. . Aniston is to play the cop, while Streep is her cellmate, a war protester. The film is an adaptation of a novel by Kim Wozencraft, a former undercover drug agent who also penned ''Rush," which was turned into a film starring Jason Patric.

A TOWERING TEAM: Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett are in negotiations to team up for ''Babel," a drama that Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu is directing. The drama will reteam Inarritu with screenwriter Guillermo Arriaga. The two also collaborated on ''21 Grams" and ''Amores perros."

''Babel" interweaves four stories, set in Morocco, Tunisia, Japan, and Mexico, starting with a tragedy that befalls a married couple on holiday.

UNDERGROUND FILM: Shannyn Sossamon and Alecia Moore, better known as pop singer Pink, will topline ''Catacombs," the story of a young woman who, while on a visit to Paris, is taken to an underground party in the Catacombs, a 200-mile labyrinth of 14th-century limestone tunnels under the Left Bank. She is separated from her friends and becomes convinced that someone or something is chasing her.

NOT THAT DUFF: Beating out several bidders, Universal Pictures has acquired Stephen Belber's spec script ''The Power of Duff." Marc Platt is producing. The script concerns a local newscaster in Rochester, N.Y., who finds himself at the center of a spiritual drama. Belber is a New York playwright whose ''Match," starring Ray Liotta and Frank Langella, played on Broadway last year. His play ''McReele" is now up off-Broadway.

NEXT ROUND: Variety reports that Paul Haggis, who penned ''Million Dollar Baby," has signed on to direct and write ''Death and Dishonor," a drama based on the true story of a military officer's attempts to uncover the whereabouts of his son, also a soldier. The investigation leads him to suspect members of his son's platoon. Haggis's next film, ''Crash," which he wrote and directed, stars Don Cheadle and Sandra Bullock and is due out this spring.

Material from wire services was used in this report.