“Django” star Jamie Foxx in talks to topline Sony’s “Annie”

PanARMENIAN.Net - Jamie Foxx is in negotiations to star opposite Quvenzhane Wallis in Annie, the update of the classic comic strip-turned-musical that Sony is making with producers Will Smith and Jay-Z. The Holywood Reporter said.

Foxx would play a character named Benjamin Stacks, a variation of the Daddy Warbucks personage, who takes in the spunky orphan girl being played by Wallis. (You know he’s rich because his name literally means stacks of $100 bills, aka Benjamins.) The Django Unchained star has received an offer from the studio and sources say his team has begun to negotiate.

Will Gluck is directing the project, which has a host of producers: Smith and his Overbrook Entertainment banner partner James Lassiter, Jada Pinkett-Smith and Jay-Z. Also producing are Jay Brown and Tyran “Ty Ty” Smith through Marcy Media.

Gluck recently revised a script by Emma Thompson and Aline Brosh McKenna. Sony is eyeing a late fall production start for an anticipated 2014 release.

Foxx already is proving to be a Sony favorite. He currently is shooting The Amazing Spider-Man 2, in which he plays villain Electro, and will star as the president in the studio’s Roland Emmerich tentpole, White House Down, which opens June 28.