News: Christian Bale

Casting rumours continue to emerge for the second in The Prestige star and director Christian Bale and Christopher Nolan’s new Batman franchise, The Dark Knight. To join Heath Ledger’s Joker, rumours circulating include Cruel Intentions‘ Ryan Philippe as Two Face and Capote’s Philip Seymour Hoffman as The Penguin.

Bale has a number of other movies in the pipeline: the Werner Herzog-directed Vietnam War flick Rescue Dawn, where he plays a German-born US pilot shot down over the jungle, experimental director Tod Haynes’ exploration of the life and work of Bob Dylan, I’m Not There, with Richard Gere, Julianne Moore, Heath Ledger, Charlotte Gainsbourg and Cate Blanchett (see ComingSoon.net for more); and is set to star alongside Russell Crowe and Peter Fonda in a remake of the 1957 Elmore Leonard Western 3:10 to Yuma for Walk the Line director James Mangold.

News: Juliet Binoche

The Frenchwoman best known for her turns in 2000’s Chocolat and Krzysztof Kieslowski‘s majestic early ’90s Three Colours series proves once again that she’s one of the most beautiful actresses currently working, despite now being in her 42nd year, in this week’s Breaking and Entering, making a convincing love interest for Jude Law despite being several years his senior. She is also still hard at work in movies on both sides of the Channel and both sides of the Atlantic, from Chinese director Hsiao-hsien Hou’s French language fantasy Ballon Rouge (The Red Balloon) to the American Steve Carrell comedy Dan In Real Life.

Likely to be Binoche’s most interesting upcoming project, however, is the film adaptation of comic Steve Martin’s successful stage play Picasso at the Lapin Agile, due in 2008. Based around a meeting between Albert Einstein and Pablo Picasso in 1904 Paris, rumoured stars currently include not only Martin (who will also provide the screenplay), but also Kevin Kline, Jason Biggs, Ryan Phillippe and Elijah Wood. Should be interesting, at least – if only to see the ever-surprising Wood take on Einstein…