EXCLUSIVE: Butter Finds Its Obama to Go Up Against Jennifer Garner's Hillary

Jim Field Smith's Butter is one of the most buzzed-about projects currently in pre-production, and it's been that way since the Jason Micallef script won the Nicholl Fellowship in 2008 and landed on the Black List. Jennifer Garner attached herself early on to this analogue for the 2008 Democratic primary, where a philandering, term-limited butter-sculpting champion watches as his Hillary Clinton-esque wife (Garner) competes against a young, black butter-sculpting upstart who happens to be a 12-year-old girl. If you're thinking that the child sounds like Butter's Obama metaphor, you're right -- and now that part has been cast.

Your new Obama is young Yara Shahidi, best known for playing the daughter of Eddie Murphy in last year's Imagine That (she'll also soon be seen in the Angelina Jolie action vehicle Salt). No word yet on if she'll make a butter sculpture that references health care.

Two big roles remain uncast: the term-limited, Clinton-esque champion and his mistress. Jim Carrey was once courted for the first role before passing, while Kate Hudson, who'd been in early discussions to play the mistress, just signed onto the Ginnifer Goodwin romcom Something Borrowed.