Katherine Heigl contemplates her post-’Grey’s Anatomy’ options

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EXCLUSIVE: With her turn as ‘Grey’s Anatomy’s’ Dr. Izzie Stevens very possibly coming to an end, Katherine Heigl will have some time to shoot the movie roles she covets.

But which film projects are priorities? Sources say she’s currently contemplating several parts.

One lead candidate is ‘Blended,’ the modern-day Brady Bunch tale about two single parents who go on a blind date, then end up on a cruise with each other and their kids (and the romance and hijinks of course follow). Heigl is now attached to the Warner Bros. project, sources say (previous reports had Sandra Bullock also eyeing the female role), and it’s mainly a matter of the actress deciding whether she wants to shoot it.

Heigl is also considering moving forward with the lead role of Stephanie Plum in ‘One for the Money,’ the adaptation of Janet Evanovich’s first Plum novel, set up at Warner Bros., in which Heigl would play a lingerie saleswoman who becomes a bounty hunter. That one has its appeal, especially because, given all the many Plum bestsellers that Evanovich has written, it could well become a franchise. (There are also some other titles in development, including a pair of comedies titled ‘Is She the One’ and ‘Drawn Together,’ but the Heigl buzz on those is quieter.)

The ‘Blended’ part has a certain familiarity to it. The semi-independent, semi-lonely single woman is a character Heigl has played before, in last year’s ‘The Ugly Truth,’ and 2008’s ’27 Dresses,’ and 2006’s ‘Knocked Up,’ and nearly all her previous big-screen roles, now that we think of it.

It would mark a branching-out of sorts for Heigl to star in ‘One for the Money,’ which has more of an action feel. Heigl is already mixing it up -- slightly -- with her upcoming Ashton Kucher collaboration ‘Killers,’ in which she’s a woman who meets the man of her dreams (not the mixing-it-up part) and then finds out he’s a secret agent and gets caught up in the gunplay (the slightly-mixing-it up part).Heigl is also taking a dramatic turn with next December’s ‘Life As We Know It,’ playing someone who must care for her friend’s orphaned child after that friend is killed.

Even given her much-publicized ‘Anatomy’ hiatuses -- taken both for family reasons and to shoot ‘Life As We Know It’ -- and her equally publicized rifts with the show’s producers, TV has restricted Heigl’s film production schedule to one or two movies per year. For either the betterment or the dismay of the moviegoing public, it appears we’ll now be seeing her a lot more.

--Steven Zeitchik

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