Julia Roberts, who hasn’t tried to carry a movie since she won a Best Actress Oscar for “Erin Brockovich,” which was shot near the end of the last century, is apparently ready to assume that burden again after nine years of limited duty. Since then, Roberts has has eschewed offers of $25 million paychecks and worked exclusively in ensemble films like “America’s Sweetheart,” “Full Frontal” and “Ocean’s Twelve.” She has two unreleased films in the can: we’ll next see her in December, apparently subordinate to Tom Hanks, who has the title role in “Charlie Wilson’s War.” Next year, there’s the family drama “Fireflies in the Garden,” which sounds like another ensemble piece.

But from Cannes and Variety comes word today that Roberts, who was the world’s biggest female star before she voluntarily relinquished the title in favor of motherhood, has signed to play wildlife conservationist Joan Root in “A Flowering Evil,” based on an article in Vanity Fair. The film, which hopes to begin shooting in Kenya early next year, is one of a brace of projects unveiled by Working Title, the classy, Universal-partnered British outfit behind Roberts’ “Notting Hill” and “United 93.” The others include a Coen Brothers spy drama with George Clooney, John Malkovich, Frances McDormand and Brad Pitt, as well as a second Coen Brothers project known as “A Serious Man.” Working Title has also signed Emma Roberts — Julia’s niece and Eric Roberts’ daughter, who hopes for a breakthrough in next month’s “Nancy Drew” — to star in “Wild Child,” wherein she will portray “a rebellious American teenager sent to an English boarding school to mend her ways.” If memory serves, Mickey Rooney did that story way back in 1942 as “A Yank at Eton.”