News: Brad Pitt

It seems Pitt can do no wrong these days. He’s got away with the divorce to become one half of yet another Hollywood golden couple, and now has a kid to go with it. But ignoring the tedious tabloid angle, his cinematic outings have been pretty impressive of late and all. After this week’s hotly Oscar-tipped Babel, he’s got an insane number of very pormising movies in the works, from The Curious Tale of Benjamin Button, alongside his Babel co-star Cate Blanchett and directed by his old Fight Club and Seven buddy David Fincher, to the much-anticipated western The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, where Pitt will play the legendary gunslinger James, complete with ‘tasche and stetson.

Then, of course, there’s Ocean’s Thirteen – which will see all the usual suspected added to by Al Pacino, and which all involved have promised will be much, much better than the really rather dire Ocean’s Twelve, before he goes from frivolous to serious and political for Dirty Tricks, set in the aftermath of the Watergate scandal, and State of Play, based on the tip-top BBC political drama that aired back in 2003. He’ll be taking on the John Simm role as a crusadingjournalist trying to uncover a major scandal – although it’s somewhat likely that the action will relocate from Westminster to Washington.

Then there’s a bit more frivolity with Chad Schmidt – where Pitt will play both himself and the title character. Why? Because it’s set in 1980s Hollywood, just as Pit’s rise to fame began, and the Chad Schmidt of the title is a Brad Pitt lookalike – who rather resents his doppelganger’s success.

But keep your eye on Pitt in the run-up to the 2009 Oscars – he could be worth a flutter for Dallas Buyer’s Club, due next year, where he’ll play an AIDS victim in the late 1980s forced to experiment with black market drugs in the hope of finding a cure. If they play it right – which looks likely as they’ve got Monsters Ball director Marc Forster in to direct – it could well be one for the awards.