Brad Pitt Making a Movie About Nazis and Computers?

Brad Pitt believes history is really important, and the best way to help people learn about history is by putting Brad Pitt in it. With that in mind, Pitt is producing -- and possibly starring in -- an adaptation of Edwin Black's New York Times best-seller 'IBM and the Holocaust.'

But first, a brief history lesson: In 1933 Thomas J. Watson, founder of IBM computers, had a bit of an alliance with Nazi Germany and was working to help them identify Jews for extermination -- all from the comfort of his cozy armchairs in New York and Paris.

Brad Pitt and his Plan B outfit have held the rights for a little while now, with a project previously in development as an HBO original film. Pitt has a script from Marcus Hinchey, who wrote the underrated drama 'All Good Things,' starring Ryan Gosling.

Vulture reports that Pitt is now shopping the project out to directors and has attached himself as the star to help attract someone. As if Brad Pitt ever had trouble attracting anyone. But hey, if he's still having problems, he should ask his writer buddy Mr. Hinchey for Ryan Gosling's phone number.

Here's an official synopsis for the book:

IBM and the Holocaust is the award-winning, New York Times bestselling shocker–a million copies in print–detailing IBM’s conscious co-planning and co-organizing of the Holocaust for the Nazis, all micromanaged by its president Thomas J Watson from New York and Paris. This Expanded Edition offers 37 pages of previous unpublished documents, pictures, internal company correspondence, and other archival materials to produce an even more explosive volume. Originally published to extraordinary praise in 2001, this provocative, award-winning international bestseller has stood the test of time as it chronicles the story of IBM’s strategic alliance with Nazi Germany. IBM and the Holocaust provides nothing less than a chilling investigation into corporate complicity. Edwin Black’s monumental research exposes how IBM and its subsidiaries helped create enabling technologies for the Nazis, step-by-step, from the identification and cataloging programs of the 1930s to the selections of the 1940s.