EXCLUSIVE: Joel and Ethan Coen are putting together their next film, and it’s about a fixer in Hollywood circa 1950s who works for the studios to protect the stars of the day. Entitled Hail Caesar, the comical yarn centers on a man named Eddie Mannix who sounds a lot like the Fred Otash of his day — the famed 1950s private investigator who worked for Confidential magazine and was the muckraker of the time using wiretaps to spy on movie stars and gather dirt. Otash was a former lifeguard who became a cop, lost his job as a cop and became a private eye who wiretapped. The project is being put together now. It’s not clear if the Eddie Mannix in the script is based on the man of the same who was a MGM vp, for those of you wondering. The real Mannix was vp and general manager under Louis B. Mayer and Dore Schary. It was Mannix’s wife who actor George Reeves had the affair with. Reeves was later found with a gunshot wound to the head and it was ruled a suicide by the L.A. County coroner’s office but questions have always persisted about the death.

It was not unusual during the time for studios’ internal security to protect their assets to construct and manage the squeaky clean image of their stars. The big stars of the day were under contracts for a certain number of pictures so the powerful studios had their own go-to guys (and sometimes hired outside private investigators) to deep-six scandalous stories, whether it be romantic dalliances, drug use, DUIs, arrests, you name it. For the more serious threats, the fixers used pay-outs, strong-arming, and took care of “problems” (real or perceived) by any means necessary. It was the day of the old Hollywood star system.

A man I knew very well, Milton Ebbins, who was like my second father and was the liaison between Hollywood and the Kennedy White House, took care of the Rat Pack in a similar fashion, cleaning up behind the scenes for the boys. I would hear story after story about Old Hollywood and this kind of behavior. Pay-offs, a trip to Hawaii for a girl who witnessed something she shouldn’t have, money carried in envelopes or brown paper bags, and threats to make problems go away were not unusual. That behavior among Hollywood’s elite — illegal wiretapping, threats and a corruption of the Los Angeles’ legal system — continued up until 2002 when the current Hollywood fixer, Anthony Pellicano, was arrested and thrown into prison (after threatening my life and illegally wiretapping my phones).

Hail Caesar follows the Coen brothers’ critically acclaimed Inside Llewyn Davis which was set in New York’s folk music community and starred Oscar Isaac. The Coens won Best Picture, Directing and Writing Oscars for No Country For Old Men and won for best writing for Fargo, which has been spun off now as a event TV series on FX. They are repped by UTA.

Seven years after they collaborated on “No Country for Old Men,” Josh Brolin has signed on to reteam with the Coen brothers on “Hail, Caesar!,” which Universal Pictures has acquired for worldwide distribution, the studio announced Monday.

Oscar winner George Clooney is set to star in “Hail, Caesar,” which Joel and Ethan Coen will direct from their own original screenplay.

“Hail, Caesar!” is a comedic period picture set in the 1950s that follows Eddie Mannix, a Hollywood fixer who works for the studios to protect their movie stars (and their squeaky-clean reputations) from gossip rags and jealous rivals eager to expose salacious scandals.

The Coens will also produce under their Mike Zoss Productions banner alongside Eric Fellner and Tim Bevan of Working Title Films.

“Hail, Caesar!” be the eighth collaboration between the Coen brothers and Working Title.

Brolin recently signed on to voice the villainous role of Thanos in the Marvel cinematic universe, as well as co-star in Denis Villenueve's “Sicario.” He's represented by CAA and attorney Wendy Kirk of Ziffren Brittenham.

CAA also reps Clooney, while UTA reps the Coen brothers.

Scarlett Johansson is in talks to join the Coen brothers’ drama “Hail Caesar.”

She would join Josh Brolin and George Clooney. Channing Tatum, Tilda Swinton and Ralph Fiennes are also in negotiations to co-star.

Universal will distribute with the Coens producing, along with Eric Fellner and Tim Bevan for Working Title Films.

The story follows a Hollywood fixer in the 1950s who is working to keep a studio’s stars in line.

Johansson will play an actress who suddenly becomes pregnant as her film is about to go into production. It’s a good fit, since Johansson announced in March that she was pregnant. She is engaged to Romain Dauriac.

The plan is to go into production this fall and given the size of the cast, Johansson’s role is not expected to take very long to shoot.

She can be seen next in Universal’s “Lucy” and just wrapped production on Marvel’s “Avengers: Age of Ultron.” She is repped by CAA and LBI Entertainment.