Natalie Portman seems to be in everything these days. Previews for Thor, The Other Woman, Your Highness, and No Strings Attached are everywhere, and the Oscar campaign for her outstanding role in Black Swan is in high gear. Yet, according to her, she knows nothing about the upcoming The Dark Knight Rises or the unofficially titled Superman reboot by Zack Snyder. What she does know a little about is the long-gestating Cloud Atlas. While speaking with Entertainment Weekly (via The Playlist), Portman said that Tom Tykwer and the Wachowskis will direct the film together.

“I don’t know what’s going on with financing. I read it while doing V for Vendetta and I gave it to the Wachowskis and to Tom Tykwer. Now they’re directing it together, the three of them. I will have some acting role in it if it happens, but probably nothing major.”

Hit the jump for more on Cloud Atlas.

For those not up to speed, Cloud Atlas is a heralded 2004 novel by David Mitchell that had writer/director Tom Tykwer (Run Lola Run) writing the script and the Wachowskis producing and possibly directing. In November, Halle Berry mentioned the film would start filming in summer 2011 and would star Tom Hanks, Portman, and herself. Here’s the synopsis for the book:

“A reluctant voyager crossing the Pacific in 1850; a disinherited composer blagging a precarious livelihood in between-the-wars Belgium; a high-minded journalist in Governor Reagan’s California; a vanity publisher fleeing his gangland creditors; a genetically modified “dinery server” on death-row; and Zachry, a young Pacific Islander witnessing the nightfall of science and civilisation — the narrators of Cloud Atlas hear each other’s echoes down the corridor of history, and their destinies are changed in ways great and small.

In his captivating third novel, David Mitchell erases the boundaries of language, genre and time to offer a meditation on humanity’s dangerous will to power, and where it may lead us.”

As you can see, the book spans hundreds of years and interweaves six storylines. The adaptation is not an easy task to put on film, and not an easy sell to a studio either. Whether summer 2011 is still the target is unconfirmed at this point. Additionally, Ian McKellen and James McAvoy’s rumored roles are also a mystery. The Playlist ponders whether the Wachowskis’ Robin Hood tale Hood with Will Smith could be a cash grab to get financing for Cloud Atlas. What do you think? Is Cloud Atlas too risky for a studio to back or do the Wachowskis have enough cache to get this thing off the ground? Sound off in the comments below.