Jack Black has been set to star in the new financial comedy Bailout for director Michael Winterbottom.

The project is based on the Jess Walter novel The Financial Lives of Poets, which centers on a man on the brink of bankruptcy who tries to make a financial comeback after meeting two slackers in a grocery store. Jess Walter adapted her own novel for the silver screen.

Michael Winterbottom will direct Bailout, with Michael Besman, Melissa Parmenter, Ben Cooley, Priyanka Mattoo, and Jack Black producing.

Production is scheduled to start in August 2011.