AceShowbiz -

The successful "Bad Santa" star Billy Bob Thornton is going to join Julia Roberts and Clive Owen in Universal Pictures new drama project "Duplicity". In the film written and helmed by Tony Gilroy, the co-star of Halle Berry in "Monster's Ball" will star opposite Academy Award-nominated actor Tom Wilkinson.

According to Variety, he and Wilkinson are going to play the CEOs of rival pharmaceutical companies racing to corner the market on an innovation that will bring wild profits. Along with them, Roberts and Owen are to play opposite corporate spies who team up to stage an elaborate fraud to manipulate which corporation will win. Further, the film distributed by Universal Pictures is expected to start production in March.

Accordingly, Thornton has recently finished filming a drama film based on short stories by Bret Easton Ellis "The Informers" starring also Brandon Routh, Ashley Olsen and Winona Ryder. He is currently involved with the production of D.J. Caruso-directed drama "Eagle Eye" in which he stars alongside Shia LaBeouf, Michelle Monaghan and Rosario Dawson. The 52-year-old actor previously can be seen in various movies, including "Mr. Woodcock", "Friday Night Lights", "Intolerable Cruelty" and "Waking Up in Reno".