The producer behind the film adaptation of Kavalier & Clay has told Michael Chabon that the movie “will all come back together again,” the author said Tuesday.

During an online chat hosted by The Washington Post, Chabon said the producers had green lighted the movie last summer, with Tobey Maguire and Natalie Portman set to star and Stephen Daldry set to direct.

“The production designer had taken his kids out of school in LA and was ready to move to London where the principal interiors were going to be shot,” Chabon said. “And then last fall it all fell apart. I’m not entirely sure why; I’m not privy to the inside information, but my sense is that the studio (Paramount) underwent one of those financial panics that studios are regularly prey to, and many plugs were pulled–including K&C’s.”

“Oh, well, that’s showbiz,” he added.

Nevertheless, Chabon said producer Scott Rudin “assures me that there is no reason to despair and that it will all come back together again.”

“I have no reason at all not to believe him,” he said.

During the chat, Chabon also hinted at what his next project might be.

“I would like to get a new novel going,” he said. “I would like it to be set in the present day and feel right now the urge to do something more mainstream than my recent work has been.”

He also said no new graphic novels starring the Escapist were lined up.

The film adaptation of Ayelet Waldman’s “Love and Other Impossible Pursuits” has gained a co-financier, Hollywood Reporter said Tuesday.

British-based Capitol Films will co-finance and take on worldwide sales duties for the Jennifer Lopez vehicle. Capitol headed to Cannes to find buyers for the picture.

Peter Naish, Capitol Films’ co-managing director, described Don Roos’ script as “the kind of feisty yet sexy role that could have been made for Jennifer.”

Michael Chabon and Ayelet Waldman sent out an e-mail Thursday directing friends to donate to the campaign of Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama.

The couple is aiming to raise $25,000 for the campaign, and has established an outreach page on Obama’s campaign Web site.

“We can imagine and we believe that a Barack Obama presidency would repair the incalculable damage the Bush cabal has done to our country and to our reputation in the world,” the couple said in their e-mail. “Talk about shock and awe — imagine the signal it would send to the traumatized, impoverished, alienated people of the world (of Africa, of the Middle East) if the face of our country was President Barack Obama.”

The endorsement comes a week before Chabon’s newest novel, The Yiddish Policemen’s Union, hits the stands, which is sure to bring increased media attention to Chabon and his causes. Obama to date has raised $25.7 million, putting him in second in building a warchest to Sen. Hilary Clinton, who has nearly $31 million.

Waldman attended Harvard Law School with Obama. Chabon, the e-mail said, has met him.

“Give for whatever reason you like,” they wrote. “Because you like Obama, or because you like us. Because of all the elections where you had to hold your nose as you pulled the lever. Hell, we don’t care if you give just because one time we donated to your diabetes walkathon or your AIDS ride or your kid’s school auction.”

Federal Election Commission reports show Waldman has contributed $4,600 to Obama, the maximum amount when contributing for both the primary and general election. The FEC’s Web site does not show any contributions from Chabon in 2007, though it appears the site is still being updated with the most recent filing information. In 2004, he contributed $500 to Obama’s U.S. Senate campaign.

Waldman has for a while indicated her hopes that Obama would make it to the White House. On her blog in 2005, shortly after he’d been elected to the Senate, Waldman said she’d like to see Obama run for vice president with Barbara Boxer going for commander in chief (“it’s fantasy politics, people,” Waldman wrote).

To donate to Obama at Waldman and Chabon’s personal fundraising site, click here.

The Anchorage Daily News (my state’s newspaper) has the inevitable Alaska newspaper story today. As in, “You mean there’s a book coming out that has 3.2 million Jews in Sitka? Has this guy ever even been to Sitka?”

“I fully expected Alaskans to just be horrified by this,” Chabon laughed, “that so many people would show up on their doorstep, regardless of who they are.”

Seriously, the article is a good backgrounder into the history of the Jewish Alaska plan. Why? Because the article’s author, Tom Kizzia, wrote a four-part series in 1999 about the real plan Chabon based his novel on.

The New York Post on Sunday labeled Michael Chabon’s new book, The Yiddish Policemen’s Union, as having an “ugly view of Jews” and said it “is bound to set off a firestorm of controversy.”

The book, which hits stands in May, “depicts Jews as constantly in conflict with one another, and its villains are a ruthless, ultra-Orthodox sect that resembles the Lubavitchers.”

The article goes on to say the book “depicts some of his Jewish characters as willing to do anything, including massacring other Jews, in the cause of Zionism.”

“Film rights were sold to producer Scott Rudin five years ago, long before the book was finished,” the article says. “But with Chabon’s take on Jews as the central element in endless struggle, maybe Mel Gibson would like to direct.”

Good thing it’s just the New York Post and, you know, no one takes it seriously.