Jay-Z wants Emma Thompson for his hip-hop Annie remake

Back in January it was announced that Jay-Z and Will Smith would be collaborating of a series of new films for Sony Pictures. The first planned film in that effort was a remake of ANNIE that was set to star Smith’s daughter Willow with music produced by HOVA himself. Since then we’ve heard nothing on the film and the optimistic among us may have hoped the project died a quiet death. Not so much.

Vulture is reporting that Emma Thompson, Oscar-winning writer Emma Thompson, has signed on to write the script for Smith and Jay’s ANNIE. It may seem like an odd pairing but Smith has been working with Thompson on MEN IN BLACK 3 where she plays a new character that has taken over for Rip Torn as the head of the MIB division (her character is played in younger years by Alice Eve).

At this time there’s no deal for Thompson to star in the film as well but it seems an almost foregone conclusion that she’d star as the boozy and cruel Ms. Hannigan, head of the orphanage where Annie lives (and made famous by Carol Burnett in the original movie).

Thompson hasn’t started work on the project yet and Jay is still hard at work finishing up his album with Kanye West so it may be some time still before we see ANNIE up on the big screen. But like it or not, it’s coming atcha.