Robert Pattinson Gets ‘Parts Per Billion’

 Robert Pattinson, ready to try out some non-vampire action.

Are you worried about not having enough Robert Pattinson before New Moon comes out (and it hasn’t started filming yet)? Well, he does have two films–Little Ashes and How to Be–two films he has completed but haven’t been widely released yet. And now the MTV Movies Blog reports that Pattinson has been cast in Parts Per Billion, an ensemble film that will also star Olivia Thirlby, Dennis Hopper, and Rosario Dawson. The film will tell “the story of three couples (including Pattinson and Thirlby) dealing with the same reality-shaking event that threatens to tear them apart.”

A reality shaking event!! Goodness. Based on the carefully chosen word “shaking,” I’m voting earthquake. I mean, what else could it be?

Dawson, who’s out chatting up her role in the Will Smith movie Seven Pounds, said, “I don’t have a relationship to him [Pattinson] in the film. So we never meet. But we’re all within the same group of people, and the same city of people, that are responding to a life-threatening situation.”

(Okay, if not earthquake, how about epidemic? This is beginning to sound like a season of 24)

Dawson, like many, hasn’t met the illustrious Mr. Pattinson yet, but is “really looking forward to it.” Many girls feel the same way, Ro.

Parts Per Billion will film before New Moon, and is set for a late 2009 or early 2010 release. This type of movie sounds like a good choice for him. We know he’s been turned into a huge star for millions of Twilight fans, but it would be risky for him to try to carry a big mainstream movie himself at this point. Stepping into an ensemble film like this can let him ease his way into the rest of the world’s view.