News: Rachel Weisz

After this week’s odd sci-fi, The Fountain, Weisz’s turn in the comedy/romance Definitely, Maybe, written and directed by the writer of Bridget Jones 2 and Wimbledon will come as a bit of a break. But then it’s back to the experimental, with a role in cult director Wong Kar-Wai’s My Blueberry Nights, starring Norah Jones as a woman taking a road trip across the US, and co-starring the likes of Jude Law, Tim Roth, Natalie Portman and Ed Harris. She’ll be teaming up with Wong Kar-Wai again in 2008 for a remake of Orson Welles’ classic The Lady From Shanghai, with Weisz set to take the Rita Hayworth role.

Before that, though, it’s back to comedy, with a part in the Paul Giamatti and Vince Vaughan-starring festive bit of fun Fred Claus, due Christmas 2007, as well as another return to Africa following Weisz’s superb, Oscar-winning turn in The Constant Gardener. This time it’ll be a period piece, with Weisz playing the object of Colin Firth’s affections in the 19th century historical drama The Colossus,covering the final years of Cecil Rhodes’ regime in what is now Zimbabwe. Sir Ian McKellen will take on the role of the imperial hero/scoundrel.

News: Hugh Jackman

After this week’s The Fountain, and recent outings including Flushed Away, The Prestige and Happy Feet all having been released in the space of just a couple of months, Jackman’s really churning them out. His own X-Men spin-off, Wolverine, is due for 2008 as well – but it’s not all big blockbusters, as his lead role in Woody Allen’s Scoop (set in London but as yet not set for release in the UK) should attest.

Of Jackman’s other upcoming projects, most interesting are likely to be The Tourist, where he’ll play a lawyer who leads Ewan McGregor into a hidden world of sex and kidnapping, genius Chinese director Wong Kar-Wai’s 1930s-set The Lady From Shanghai (again opposite Rachel Weisz), and weirdo Aussie director Baz Lurhmann’s ambitious-sounding epic Australia, in which Jackman will star alongside fellow antipodean Nicole Kidman.

There’s also The Amateur, with Jackman playing a geeky CIA code cracker who turns himself into a killing machine when his wife is killed by terrorists, a small role in period piece A Plumm Summer, full-on action thriller Drive, with Jackman as a Hollywood stuntman trying to escape a hitman, romantic comedy Rebound Guy, and supernatural musical romance If You Could See Me Now – and that’s before you even start on the rumours of a remake of Oklahoma! with Jackman reprising the role that brought him such success on the London stage before Hollywood came a-calling.

Busiest man in Hollywood? He’s certainly a top contender. Does the guy even know how to say “no”?

News: Rachel Weisz

Brit lovely Rachel Weisz is just one of the big names in this week’s kids’ fantasy Eragon, though she’s only on voice duties. We’ll soon be seeing a lot more of her, however, with a number of big parts in big movies due over the next weeks, months and years.

Due in January, after a perhaps appropriately insanely long wait, is oddball director Darren Aronofsky’s The Fountain – a much-delayed, hugely ambitious sci-fi/fantasy romance spanning 1,000 years and three separate, if linked, storylines revolving around Hugh Jackman’s efforts to find Weisz, his one true love. It has been slated at least as much as praised by those who have seen it so far, so could prove interesting.

Then will come more standard fare, with Weisz’s turn in the comedy/romance Definitely, Maybe, written and directed by the writer of Bridget Jones 2 and Wimbledon. But then it’s back to the experimental, with a role in cult director Wong Kar-Wai’s My Blueberry Nights, starring Norah Jones as a woman taking a road trip across the US, and co-starring the likes of Jude Law, Tim Roth, Natalie Portman and Ed Harris. She’ll be teaming up with Wong Kar-Wai again in 2008 for a remake of Orson Welles’ classic The Lady From Shanghai, with Weisz set to take the Rita Hayworth role.

Before that, though, it’s back to comedy, with a part in the Paul Giamatti and Vince Vaughan-starring festive bit of fun Fred Claus, due Christmas 2007, as well as another return to Africa following Weisz’s superb, Oscar-winning turn in The Constant Gardener. This time it’ll be a period piece, with Weisz playing the object of Colin Firth’s affections in the 19th century historical drama The Colossus,covering the final years of Cecil Rhodes’ regime in what is now Zimbabwe. Sir Ian McKellen will take on the role of the imperial hero/scoundrel.

News: Hugh Jackman

Though almost unknown when heended up as a last-minute replacement for Dougray Scott on the first X-Men film back in 2000, Hugh Jackman’s career is now in full-on overdrive, with his turn in this week’s The Prestige just the latest impressive addition to his film CV. With his own X-Men spin-off, Wolverine, due for 2008, this freshest Australian superstar is really churning them out,with lead roles alongside his The Prestige co-star Scarlett Johansson in Woody Allen’s Scoop and Rachel Weisz in Darren Aronofsky’s ambitious The Fountain and voice work as a rat in Wallace and Grommit creators Aarman Animation’s Flushed Away and as a penguin in the much-anticipated Happy Feet already completed and ready for imminent release.

Of Jackman’s other upcoming projects, most interesting are likely to be The Tourist, where he’ll play a lawyer who leads Ewan McGregor into a hidden world of sex and kidnapping, genius Chinese director Wong Kar-Wai’s 1930s-set The Lady From Shanghai (again opposite Rachel Weisz), and weirdo Aussie director Baz Lurhmann’s as yet untitled next project, in which Jackman will star alongside fellow antipodean Nicole Kidman. And if that’s not enough, just this week another project has emerged, The Amateur, with Jackman playing a geeky CIA code cracker who turns himself into a killing machine when his wife is killed by terrorists.

At this rate, Jackman could soon see himself making a serious challenge to Russell Crowe and even Mel Gibson as Hollywood’s premiere Australian male – especially if Crowe keeps appearing in dross like A Good Year and Gibson keeps getting drunk and making sexist/racist remarks to police officers…

News: Jude Law

While not appearing in the gossip sections of the tabloids over the latest rumours about his relationship with rising starlet Sienna Miller, All the King’s Men’s Law has been a busy boy, having taken most of last year off. First up is The English Patient and The Talented Mr Ripley director Anthony Minghella’s Breaking and Entering where, alongside Juliet Binoche, Ray Winstone, Martin Freeman and his King’s Men co-star Sean Penn’s wife Robin Wright Penn, Law will play a landscape architect to starts to reassess his life after a run-in with a young burglar.

Next up will be The Holiday, where Law’s King’s Men co-star Kate Winslett plays an unluck-in-love woman who does a house-swap with an equally unfortunate woman, played by Cameron Diaz, in an attempt to turn her life around. Law plays one of the bits of male eye-candy, alongside Rufus Sewell and, somewhat implausibly, scruffy tubster Jack Black.

After a small role in cult Chinese director Wong Kar-Wai’s American road trip movie My Blueberry Nights, hopefully due out in the UK sometime late next year, Law’s most promising – and at the same time most worrying – upcoming project is Sleuth. Starring alongside Michael Caine – who seems to have forgiven Law for destroying his classic character Alfie in the abysmal 2004 remake – this is yet another remake of a British classic, the 1972 flick of the same name in which the younger Caine entered a battle of wits with Laurence Olivier over a marital infidelity. We can but hope that yet more cinematic memories aren’t soiled in the process…