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: Ewan McGregor

McGregor is working harder than ever these days, with this week’s Miss Potter the first of eight movies in which he’ll be starring over the next couple of years.

There’s action thriller The Tourist, alongside the equally prolific Hugh Jackman, animated adventure Agent Crush, alongside the voices of Neve Campbell and near-legendary Sir Roger Moore, comic fantasy I, Lucifer, as man whose body is taken over by Daniel Craig’s Satan, and sci-fi thriller Franklyn, about which little is as yet known other than that McGregor is set to star, and The Great Pretender, where he will play a Hollywood star playing Bonnie Prince Charlie in a film as well as the lookalike extra who is roped in to taking over when the hotshot actor goes missing.

On top of all that, he’ll be cropping up in Woody Allen’s Cassandra’s Dream – as yet not set for release on either side of the Atlantic, but likely to be out this year – and the intriguing-sounding Number 13, based around the set of genius director Alfred Hitchcock’s last, never completed, movie, where love triangles and murder abound just as much as they ever did in Hitch’s own flicks. A fair array of different types of films there, and not a lightsabre in sight – which must come as a blessed relief…

News: Scarlett Johansson

Even before this week’s magical movie, Hollywood’s hottest starlet had got used to working alongside her The Prestige co-star Hugh Jackman on the set of Woody Allen’s Scoop, yet to be scheduled for a UK release, where she plays an American journalism student in London who lands a big story – and an affair with Jackman’s aristocrat. She’ll be cropping up as a student again (well, she is still only 21, with her 22nd on the 22nd of this month) in American Splendor directors Shari Springer Berman and Robert Pulcini’s New York-set The Nanny Diaries, where she’ll play the titular nanny, living and trying to keep up with her studies in the household of Paul Giamatti and Laura Linney’s Mr and Mrs X.

But Johansson’s far too canny to risk getting typecast, so it’s good to see her lending her help to the current revival of the period drama, with no less than four historical projects in the works. She is still attached to star as Betsy Balcombe, the daughter of Napoleon Bonaparte’s British jailer at the end of the French Emperor’s life, in Napoleon and Betsy – although the project seems to have been on hiatus for some months. More recently announced – though with little as yet known other than that it came from an idea by Johansson herself – is Amazon, which could well be a female version of Gladiator, with Johansson in the Russell Crowe role as an avenging warrior in 200BC.

Most interestingly, however, is a brace of British-based history pieces, both set in the Tudor era. First up, based on the bestselling novel by Philippa Gregory and directed by the man behind the BBC’s recent adaptation of Dickens’ Bleak House, is The Other Boleyn Girl. With Eric Bana lined up as Henry VIII and Natalie Portman as his ill-fated second wife Anne Boleyn, Johansson will play the “other” Boleyn of the title, Anne’s sister Mary, who was also having an affair with the King. After that, Johansson will take on royalty herself in Mary Queen of Scots, with her in the title role, based on a script by Cracker creator Jimmy McGovern. See? They always told you that history could be cool…

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: Ewan McGregor

The actor who has managed to combine heroin chic with Jedi heroics continues to churn out an insane number of very varied films, with five last year alone, and another seven in the pipeline after this week’s Scenes of a Sexual Nature. Due out at the start of January, McGregor will next be starring alongside Renée Zellweger as she takes the lead in the Beatrix Potter biopic Miss Potter, yet another potential Oscar contender (there’s always a glut of them at this time of year).

Other potentially interesting projects include the next – as yet untitled – film from Woody Allen, alongside Colin Farrell, Tom Wilkinson and (somewhat bizarrely) former Eastenders actress Tamzin Outhwaite, and The Tourist, in which McGregor will play a man implicated in a woman’s disappearance after being introduced to a sex club by X-Men‘s Hugh Jackman.

Most promising, however, is likely to be I, Lucifer, based on the novel by Glen Duncan in which a man has his body taken over for a month by Satan himself after a deal between the Evil One and God. McGregor will play the unfortunate vessel for the Devil, with new Bond Daniel Craig playing the fallen angel who posesses him. Could be entertaining – and is bound to cause a bit of religious controversy when it finally makes it to our screens.