For the life of me, I couldn't predict Sean Penn's project choices in advance; however, if you gave me a stack of scripts and tasked me to split them into a no and a maybe pile, I think I'd be pretty successful. The new Superman? That's in the no pile. A gritty drama about terrorists, a reporter and a soldier trying to get his family home? Definite maybe.

That latter script in question is called The Last Photograph, and it's also attracted the interest of Christian Bale and Niels Arden Oplev, the director of the Swedish version of Girl With The Dragon Tattoo. Now with Penn circling the project, it seems like everyone's fascinated with putting the Zack Snyder pitch together except the studio. Warner Brothers, once enthusiastic enough about the idea to set it up, now apparently wants no part of financing it. Dark Castle is looking to acquire the rights but will still let the original studio distribute it.

The Last Photograph follows Bale's character, a journalist in Afghanistan, who witnesses a kidnapping. He sends word back home to a retired military man who suspects someone in his family was taken in the ambush. Together, the two trespass through the countryside trying to hunt the terrorists down. If Sean Penn ends up coming aboard, he would play the other lead.

According to Deadline, all involved would like to shoot the project next year after production and publicity is finished for Bale's Dark Knight Rises, but until the Dark Castle/ Warner Brothers money end is figured out, The Last Photograph will remain at a standstill.