Quvenzhané Wallis is in talks for Will Smith and Jay-Z's Annie remake, obviously

When it was confirmed that Willow Smith had aged out of the role of Annie, too overcome by the existential angst of encroaching adolescence to be some rich daddy’s dancing little doll any longer, Will Smith and Jay-Z began their search for a new lead and possibly a new, more compliant daughter to star in their remake that is now only marginally less of a vanity project. Then, as Entertainment Weekly confirms, they did what everyone just assumed they would and began talking to Quvenzhané Wallis, who’s still young, adorable, and unconsumed by ennui enough to make crushing poverty seem like a lot of fun, just as she did in Beasts Of The Southern Wild. Talks between Wallis, director Will Gluck, and whomever Jay-Z sends to these meetings are still in the early stages, of course, but she’s no doubt somewhere in the lead, perhaps second only to “a digitally superimposed Beyonce’s head on a 9-year-old’s body.”