Angelina Jolie is going to play the lead in the sequel to the 1999 film The Thomas Crown Affair, titled The Topkapi Affair. She will star as Pierce Brosnan’s love interest and producers have told her that she needs to be at least somewhat voluptuous to carry it off. According to Female First, which is not a reliable source, she’s been ordered to gain 28 pounds for the part. Jolie was painfully thin in the action film Wanted, and filmmakers supposedly don’t want to see Angelina looking super tiny on screen, so they’ve told her to bulk up:

The 33-year-old actress must gain up to 28lbs by the bosses of ‘The Thomas Crown Affair 2’ – who she also worked with on her last movie ‘Wanted’ – because they are desperate to avoid her fainting on set as she did while filming the assassin thriller.

A source said: “Ideally they want Angelina to put on 28lbs for the role. It is going to be very physically demanding, which is why they want her to carry the extra weight.

“They don’t want a reprise of what happened with ‘Wanted’, where she was fainting and they had to take her costumes in. She was also slated for being too skinny to portray an action woman, and for ‘Thomas Crown’ they want a convincing female lead.”

Angelina – who gave birth to twins Knox Leon and Vivienne Marcheline earlier this month – is due to play the leading lady opposite Pierce Brosnan, who reprises his role as billionaire art thief Thomas Crown.

Brosnan will also produce the movie.

[From Female First via WeSmirch]

This story could be total bullsh*t, but you could see how they would want Angelina to gain weight – or at least keep some of the weight on that she gained while pregnant with the twins. Her facial features looked so much better filled out when she was pregnant and seeing the photos for Wanted I was struck by how different she looks when she’s really thin. She doesn’t seem as sexy or womanly to me.

Rene Russo was gorgeous and kicked ass in the 1999 remake of Thomas Crown. I tried to figure out if Angelina Jolie will be playing Russo’s same character, Catherine Banning, or if she’ll be a new love interest for Brosnan’s art thief in this sequel, but I couldn’t find the details online. While I can see why they’re replacing Russo to get better box office results from Angelina it doesn’t quite seem fair. Russo is 54 and still looks great. Hollywood is of course ageist, but it’s about the bottom line after all. They could have made Russo just as appealing and I would personally rather see the film with her in the role again. Maybe Angelina will play some new character, though, we’ll have to see.

Here’s Renee Russo on 5/13/08. Credit: Fame