News: Brittany Murphy

Having teamed up with her Sin City co-star Elijah Wood as the voice of the penguin love interest in this week’s Happy Feet, Murphy looks to be going back to eschewing the traditional roles for up and coming starlets for her next movie, The Ramen Girl. In what could sound like a shameless rip-off of Lost in Translation, she’ll be heading off to Tokyo as an American woman who splits up with her boyfriend in the Japanese capital and, desperately looking for direction, decides to train as a Ramen noodle cook under Japanese household name Toshiyuki Nishida’s strict master chef. Expect culture clashes galore.

After her trip to the Land of the Rising Sun, Murphy will be off to even more exotic territory in surreal comedy/fantas/drama The Other Side, pitched as a cross between Beetlejuice, Amelie and Alice in Wonderland. Based around a scientist’s exploration of strange goings on on a remote island, Murphy joins a cast that includes the impressive likes of Jim Broadbent, Tim Roth, Anjelica Huston, Giovanni Ribisi and Jason Lee – if they do it right, it could prove in interesting Tim Burton-style slice of weirdness.

Finally, Murphy will be going back to the role that first brought her to many people’s attention, that of Clive Owen’s girl Shellie in Sin City 2. Owen will return as well, alongside another impressive cast that includes actors old and new like Rosario Dawson, Michael Madsen, Jessica Alba, Michael Clarke Duncan, Devon Aoki, Mickey Rourke and – rumour has it – possibly also Angelina Jolie. Either way, if you liked the last slice of ultraviolent, super-stylised noirish action, it’s pretty certain that the wait until its release (possibly Spring 2007, possibly not) will be a long one.

News: Eva Green

Casino Royale Bond girl Eva Green first drew attention to herself in Ridley Scott’s disappointing Kingdom of Heaven, but is beginning to build a promising career – as long as the curse of the Bond girl doesn’t strike, and she ends up like the countless other 007 cast-offs who have found their careers flounder after appearing in the franchise.

Next up, she will be appearing alongside Daniel Craig once again in the first His Dark Materials movie, based on the Philip Pullman novels, as the witch queen Serafina Pekkala – a relatively important role in the books that should see her cropping up in all three films. Then she will take the title role in Therese Raquin, a tale of illicit love, murder, and the disintegration of relationships which will also star the intriguing Giovanni Ribisi and always superb Glenn Close.

With two other starring roles in projects still in the pipeline – including alongside French superstar Vincent Cassel in 1970s-set crime thriller L’Ennemi public n° 1, it looks like Green could well do well out of her stint as arm candy for the world’s best-known spy.