Thanks to the success of his 2010 Oscar-magnet The Fighter, David O. Russell has been able to parlay that acclaim and interest to new projects, including Silver Linings Playbook, a Weinstein Co. feature about bipolar disorder starring Bradley Cooper, Robert De Niro and Jennifer Lawrence, which premiered this past Saturday at Toronto (read Matt's positive review here).Russell is also looking towards doing an upcoming film about the Abscam corruption scandal, a currently untitled piece (previously referred to as American Bullshit), that will be another collaboration with Cooper, as well as Amy Adams and Jeremy Renner.  Now word comes that Cooper may link up again with Russell for a property he acquired called American Sniper.  Hit the jump for more on these projects as well as this new found creative partnership (and where the zombies come in).Russell recently sat down with THR to talk about the Silver Linings Playbook, and how the deal with Mark Wahlberg fell through at the last minute, leading to Bradley Cooper taking his place:

"We'd had a bunch of meetings over the years -- I met him at a party and met him at Bob De Niro's house once -- and we would say we wanted to work together. We were talking about doing Pride and Prejudice and Zombies and The Bends, a project I wrote, a kind of cousin to Vertigo that's still around."

Russell noted that he and Cooper have discussed doing American Sniper together, but no solid commitment has been made.  As for what draws Russell to Cooper as an actor, one might not expect Wedding Crashers to be invoked, but indeed …

"I knew he had this anger and this edge from the characters he played around Wedding Crashers; he had a sort of intensity and broodingness that was palpable. You could feel that in him. And we talked about how that had been something he had been through and had since moved beyond in many ways -- he now is a very sincere, open and vulnerable person -- and I thought that was an interesting combination."

Russell goes on to describe him as, "like an athlete who wants to burst out of the blocks and wants to stretch in all these new ways," and said that he and De Niro "took a shine to one another." Looks like this could all be the beginning of a beautiful friendship …