Three years ago, Clint Eastwood announced that Gran Torino would be his swan song from acting. You don't listen well, do you, punk, because now comes word that Clint is considering the role of Reese Witherspoon's father in Trouble With the Curve.

Clint would star as a blind, aging baseball scout who accompanies his daughter on one last trip to recruit an upcoming star. The film will mark the directorial debut of Clint's business partner/assistant director, Robert Lorenz (Million Dollar Baby, Mystic River, Blood Work).

Clint was set to lens yet another remake of A Star is Born. Why? Go back and revisit the definitive telling, the Judy Garland/George Cukor version from 1954. Unless he can improve on it, which is unlikely, I have two words for Clint: Frank Pierson, he the "auteur" behind the unclean, rocked-up 1976 remake starring Barbra Streisand.

Fans of the first two versions of A Star is Born (Cukor also directed the 1932 original, What Price Hollywood?) have Beyonce to thank for Clint's backing down. It seems the singer, who was set to appear in the Born reboot, is giving birth to a star of her own and the pic had to be put on hold. (Phew!) With a sudden hole in his schedule, Clint probably decided to reconsider acting in order to keep himself busy.

This is not the first time Clint has given a loyal underling his break behind the camera. Stunt coordinator and second unit director Buddy Van Horn signed three Eastwood vehicles: Any Which Way You Can, Pink Cadillac, and Dead Pool.

This would be the first time Clint has acted as a gun for hire on another director's project since Wolfgang Petersen's In the Line of Fire (1993).