Tuesday February 24, 05:54 PM

Chiwetel Ejiofor puts spy pic 'Salt' in his sights

LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) - Chiwetel Ejiofor is in negotiations to join the cast of "Salt," the Angelina Jolie spy thriller that Phillip Noyce is directing.

The high-profile Columbia Pictures project centers on a CIA officer named Salt (Jolie) who is fingered as a Russian sleeper spy set out to assassinate the president. The woman struggles to prove that someone else is the traitor.

Ejiofor will play Peabody, a CIA counterintelligence officer.

Liev Schreiber also is in the cast, as Salt's boss and friend on the CIA's Russian desk.

Ejiofor, whose screen credits include "Inside Man" and "American Gangster," next appears in Roland Emmerich's disaster pic "2012."

(Editing by Sheri Linden at Reuters) (please visit our entertainment blog via www.reuters.com or on http://blogs.reuters.com/fanfare/)