After lots of negotiating, DisneyӢPixar has reached a deal with Albert Brooks to reprise his role as Marlin the clown fish in Finding Nemo 2.

We found out that a sequel was on the way with Andrew Stanton returning to direct back in July, and that Ellen DeGeneres had signed on to reprise her role as Dory just month later. Brooks, however, was apparently a little bit trickier to lock up, and it’s said that he’ll be paid rather handsomely for the gig.

Recently it was revealed that a sequel to this writer’s personal favorite Disney*Pixar movie, Finding Nemo, was on the way with original director Andrew Stanton locked in to return to what’s currently known simply as Finding Nemo 2, and Ellen Degeneres the first star to sign on for another trip into the Deep Blue.

Stanton recently stepped outside of the family of geniuses over at Pixar in order to make his live-action feature debut, John Carter, for Disney. The movie was considered by many to be a decent popcorn flick, but, for numerous reasons, it would become one of the biggest box office flops of all time, costing over $250 million and only making $73 million domestically ($282.7 million worldwide).

Because of this unfortunate result, a sequel to the movie was scrapped, moving Nemo 2 to the top of Stanton’s list.

Last month we reported that Andrew Stanton had been given the go ahead to put a sequel for Finding Nemo into motion. When that was announced, some wondered what the plot of the story might be. While we are still a long ways away from finding that out, we now have word that Ellen DeGeneres will be reprising her role as the forgetful but ever so friendly fish, Dory, in Finding Nemo 2.

As earlier reported, the Pixar big wigs fell in love with the concept of the story for a Finding Nemo sequel. So this could be a fitting sequel to one of Pixar’s most popular titles.

Finding a story to tell for a possible Finding Nemo sequel is quite difficult, but you can bet that Pixar is working on bringing audiences back into Australian waters and reintroducing us to Marlin, Nemo, Dory, Crush, and Bruce.

Deadline reports that Finding Nemo director Andrew Station has found that a story to tell, that the studio loves the idea, and that he’ll be back to direct the sequel. The director is one of the most recognizable people on the Pixar staff, having served as executive producer for a number of Pixar films, as well as the director for Finding Nemo and Wall-E. The former film earned an Academy Award for Best Animated Picture and is currently Pixar’s second highest grossing movie.