Sony Pictures has payed a whopping three million for "Black Hawk Down" screenwriter Ken Nolan's 75-page "script-ment" of Whitley Strieber's unpublished alien sci-fi novel "The Grays" reports Variety.

Story concerns an alien race who essentially function as the "United States of the cosmos" - running things on Earth as well as on other worlds. Operating in secrecy, the aliens are unwilling to reveal themselves for fear of altering mankind's development. It's not clear who'll star, but insiders say the lead role is intended for a female.

Producing the pic are Cary Brokaw and John Calley - the duo behind Sony's recent adaptation of the Patrick Marber play "Closer." Calley and Brokaw recently recruited Nolan to adapt Robert Littell's hefty 900-pager "The Company," a novel that's part roman a clef, part family history of the American intelligence community.

Thanks to 'Reed'.