We’ve written about director Alfonso Cuaron’s (Children of Men) upcoming sci-fi film, Gravity, in the past.  The ambitious sounding project about “a female astronaut as she attempts to make her way back to earth after a satellite crash sets off a chain reaction of further crashes” has been getting ready to set up production for the past couple of months with hopes of meeting a 2012 release date.  The one thing that seems to be the film’s main problem is that Warner Bros. has been looking for an actress who can hold the screen and draw an audience for the risky sounding project.  Angelina Jolie was supposedly in talks to join the project but we now have news that the actress has officially passed on the film.

It makes sense for Warner Bros. to want Jolie for the film.  The actress is a huge star around the world and Salt’s $244 million worldwide box office gross only proves that some more.  Even though Gravity is set to be an $80 million film, the studio seems to really want to be sure that audiences will show up to watch an ambitious sci-fi film where the heroine is the only person onscreen for a large part of the movie.  Robert Downey Jr. is also attached to star, but he will be playing a small role and will not be carrying the film.  More after the jump:

So which actress will be able to carry the film by herself?  Deadline reports that WB has already tested or made approaches to actresses including Sandra Bullock, Natalie Portman, Naomi Watts, Marion Cotillard, Carey Mulligan, Scarlett Johansson, Sienna Miller, Abbie Cornish, Rebecca Hall, Olivia Wilde, and Blake Lively.  It was previously reported that Johansson had “verbally agreed” to star in the film after Jolie had previously passed on the film, but it seems that “verbally agreed” doesn’t exactly mean “will star” in Hollywood.

I’m sure, and really hope, that Gravity will still be able to get made.  Warner Bros. testing so many big actresses shows that the studio is serious about getting the film made soon.  It’ll be interesting to see who the studio and Cuaron end up going with and I’m guessing we will know which actress gets the part in the upcoming weeks.

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As for Jolie, she can next be seen this fall in The Tourist.  She is also attached to a lot of upcoming projects and maybe her busy schedule is why she passed on the project.  Here is a quick rundown of all of her upcoming projects:

- She is set to write and direct a love story set during the Bosnian War

- A sequel to Salt

- A film about the life of Cleopatra

- A remake of the 2009 British miniseries, Unforgiven

- Tim Burton’s take on Sleeping Beauty, Maleficent

- Darren Aronofsky’s adaptation of Ron Rash’s novel, Serena

Gravity, meanwhile, is slated to hit theaters sometime in 2012.