Angelina Jolie remains the only actress in this country trusted to carry any kind of action or adventure franchise. Just as she wraps up playing a super spy in Salt, Jolie has enlisted with Fox 2000 to star in a potential franchise based on Patricia Cornwell's Kay Scarpetta series.

The series of 16 books, including titles like Postmortem, Point of Origin and most recently Scarpetta, will be used as inspiration but not necessarily direct blueprints for the movie, according to Variety. Instead Fox 2000 will take a page from Jason Bourne's playbook, putting the Scarpetta in the lead in a new story inspired by Seven and Silence of the Lambs.

As Scarpetta, Jolie will play the chief medical investigator for the state of Virginia, investigating serial killers, death of high-profile figures, and getting romantically involved with all kinds of the wrong men, of course. Cornwell is one of the most popular female writers in the world, meaning that if Jolie didn't already guarantee a built-in audience, Cornwell will. The result might be something like a female-driven Bourne franchise, and probably another one of those lightbulb "Hey, women go to movies!" moments. Because we need one of those every few years just to make sure studios don't forget we ladies exist.

Share |