Precious has repeatedly been referred to as "this year's Slumdog Millionaire," both thanks to the movie's uplifting treatment of brutal material about poverty and the fact that it's likely to become a runaway indie success both at the box office and the Oscars. Apparently people behind both movies have noticed the similarities, and will combine their powers for their next project.

Precious director Lee Daniels and Slumdog producer Christian Colson will likely be teaming up for Selma, a recreation of the historic civil rights march in Alabama in 1965. Colson will be producing from his new Cloud Eight Films, a production house founded immediately after Slumdog's Oscar win last spring. According to Variety the script by Paul Webb is "much-buzzed-about," and in another Variety piece last year on Webb, the script was said to focus on Lyndon Johnson and Martin Luther King Jr.

Webb, a Brit, also re-wrote Steven Spielberg's long-delayed Lincoln, and is working with Michael Mann on a script about post-Communist Russia. Even though he's yet to see any of his screenplays produced, he's adding Lee Daniels as yet another director feather in his hat. Not bad for a guy who spent 25 years working dead-end jobs before starting out in the industry.