Pitt wants to climb Malick's TREE!

Ahoy, squirts! Quint here. Brad Pitt dropped out of STATE OF PLAY and now he's got some time... and it appears he's likely to drop into Terrence Malick's TREE OF LIFE, replacing Heath Ledger in the flick. No deals are in place, but the talks are serious according to Variety. The biggest question mark seems to be payment as STATE OF PLAY would have gotten him $20 million and TREE OF LIFE would get him no up-front dough. I don't know what the flick is about, but strange that Pitt dropped out of Darren Aronofsky's THE FOUNTAIN... which also featured a live-giving tree... Hrmmm... Thoughts?