EXCLUSIVE: Albert Brooks has closed a fat deal to reprise the voice Marlin in Finding Nemo 2 for Disney‘s Pixar. The sequel has been long in the works; Deadline told you last July that the studio got the original’s helmer Andrew Stanton back in the fold (I’d heard that the studio will also give him another live-action shot after his disastrous live-action debut on John Carter), and Ellen DeGeneres came back shortly after. It took much longer to hook Brooks, who continued his renaissance as an actor in the Judd Apatow-directed This Is 40, following his turn as bad-ass Bernie Rose in Drive.

Brooks is also working on another novel, this coming after his first, Twenty Thirty: The Real Story Of What Happened To America, became a bestseller. It’s unclear though when he will next write and direct another one of those personal comedy vehicles for himself he used to do, like The Muse and Lost In America. He’s repped by WME and manager Herb Nanas.