Warner Bros. Pictures has acquired the rights to sci-fi book The Sparrow for Brad Pitt's Plan B and Industry Entertainment to produce. Pitt has a longtime interest in the project, a potential starring vehicle for him, report Variety.

Scribe Michael Seitzman (North Country) is adapting Mary Doria Russell's debut novel of the same name. Project was originally set up at Universal, but Warners picked up the rights to the book after U let them lapse.

The story revolves around a Jesuit priest who accompanies a crew of space travelers to a distant planet after Earth receives its first communication from an alien culture. The clergyman and crew befriend one of the planet's two races, unwittingly provoking a bloody war and shaking the foundations of the priest's faith.

Producers are Pitt, Industry Entertainment's Nick Wechsler and Brillstein-Grey's Cynthia Pett-Dante, Pitt's manager, who were all attached when the project was at Universal.