EXCLUSIVE: I’m told that Anne Hathaway is near a deal to star with Matthew McConaughey in Interstellar, the next film that Christopher Nolan will direct. This is a heckuva follow up to Les Miserables, for which Hathaway won the Academy Award. It also reunites her with Nolan, after she last year played the Selina/Catwoman role in Nolan’s Batfinale The Dark Knight Rises. McConaughey is also enjoying a resurgence fueled by his Independent Spirit Award-winning turn in Magic Mike, and several other pics.

Not much is known about the specific log line (Nolan and cohorts work under the cone of silence) and that includes casting. I was able to break the news about McConaughey (he confirmed it a week later), and I am sure Hathaway’s deal will make. The film is a co-production between Paramount and Warner Bros and was originally set up in 2006 by Steven Spielberg, when Paramount owned DreamWorks, and after Spielberg became intrigued by Caltech physicist and relativity expert Kip S. Thorne and his scientific theory that wormholes exist and can be used for time travel. Spielberg set Jonah Nolan to write the script, which made it easy for Christopher Nolan to come aboard after Spielberg left the project. After all, the Nolan siblings have a collaborative track record, with Jonah hatching the short story that became Christopher’s first hit Memento, and following that with two Batfilms and The Prestige. Christopher Nolan signed on in January to write a script that merged an original idea of his with the script that Jonah wrote. The ambition is a film that will depict a heroic interstellar voyage to the farthest borders of our scientific understanding. Christopher Nolan and Emma Thomas are producing with Lynda Obst. Jordan Goldberg is joining as exec producer alongside Thorne, who’ll remain on as technical consultant.

Hathaway is repped by CAA and Management 360’s Suzan Bymel.