Warner Bros. Pictures and Paramount Pictures have joined forces to acquire and co-produce an untitled manuscript from wunderkind author Jonathan Safran Foer. Scott Rudin will produce. The studios are understood to have paid about $1 million for Foer's follow-up to his best-selling novel "Everything Is Illuminated," beating out several other bidders. A passion project for Rudin, the manuscript is said to center on a precocious 12-year-old boy who loses his father in the World Trade Center attacks. After the death, the boy finds a key with a cryptic note that leads him through the city in an effort to learn what it means while at the same time dealing with his father's death. Warners is believed to have led the way in the deal. It follows the acquisition of "Everything," Foer's first novel, by the newly formed Warner Independent Pictures. Marc Turteltaub and Peter Saraf are producing that feature, with Liev Schreiber directing the Holocaust-themed project. Foer is repped by Geoffrey Sanford and Nicole Aragi.