This is the best bit of movie news I’ve heard in a while, it made my day, literally! Deadline Hollywood is reporting that Terrence Malick has his next film lined up, an untitled romantic drama which is ready to start shooting Autumn 2010. I’m a HUGE (note the caps lock) admirer of Terrence Malick, patience has definitely been a virtue for a fan of Malick, this is the guy who has made 5 movies in 37 years, including a 20 year break between Days Of Heaven and The Thin Red Line, his fifth film is being released this year – The Tree Of Life. To put the cherry on top the cast on board is great Christian Bale (who had a role in Malick’s 2005 film, “The New World”) , Javier Bardem, Rachel McAdams, and Olga Kurylenko. Romance movies generally don’t prick my ears up,  if anyone could make a moving romance film that I personally would enjoy, it would be Malick, his movies are always visually stunning, philosophical and touching.

After Martin Scorsese announced he is set to direct a biopic based on the life of Frank Sinatra a bunch of questions were raised around which aspects of Sinatra’s life the film show, he was an extremely complex man. It will be hard to fit everything into one film, will it just show his career in music and film – which in itself was legendary and lasted over 50 years, will it include his childhood, his Mob ties, his depression, his family life, his varying political activities and changing beliefs and the question I will covering in this feature, which actor will have the daunting task of playing the man himself? Playing an Icon as big a star as Frank Sinatra will be no mean feet.

In a recent interview with New York Magazine Scorsese said of the film ‘ it spans his life from being a young child to his twenties, his thirties to his late seventies, inter-cuts everything throughout time. ‘ This could mean he uses a number of actors to play Sinatra or he goes The Curious Case of Benjamin Button route and gets one actor to play the different ages. One thing that won’t be necessary for the part is the singing voice of Sinatra, reports have said Peter Guber and Cathy Schulman, the producers from Universal Pictures and Mandalay Pictures have secured rights to use Sinatra’s original recordings in the film from Frank Sinatra Enterprises — a joint venture of the Sinatra Estate and Warner Music Group. During Sinatra’s life he worked with and was friends with some of the biggest names of the 20^th Century so expect a huge ensemble cast. This looks to be EPIC!

James Franco

James Franco is my personal favourite for the part, he looks a lot like a younger Frank Sinatra, he’s a great actor and I personally think having someone who isn’t the biggest star playing such a huge star would be more beneficial to the film, you would focus more on the character than a star playing a star, I can see the tagline’s now – ‘Johnny Depp IS Frank Sinatra’ too me that takes a little bit away from the man as a character, I think the role of Sinatra will be a great step for his burgeoning career as well

James Mardsen

I had a little look online to see what the movie community is saying about the role, a number of people brought up Marsden, which to be honest I hadn’t even thought about, he is a very good young actor who’s career is building with every film he’s in, he does also have the look for Sinatra – maybe a bit too pretty boyish.

Leonardo DiCaprio

If I was a betting man I’d put my money on Leonardo DiCaprio he’s appeared in Scorsese’s last four films (including Shutter Island which is coming out Febuary 2010) and is his current muse. For me he doesn’t have the look down at all and I think him being such a big star himself will take away from Frank Sinatra. I can see him playing another part in the film though, possibly John F Kennedy (he looks like him).

Johnny Depp

Johnny Depp looks like he’s’ the studio bet for the part, he’s currently the most popular and arguably the most famous actor and would bring in his huge audience, he’s a great actor so it could definitely work and he does resemble him slightly (not as much as Franco and Mardsen though). The draw back for me is like Leo, I’m not completely confident in having a mega star play a mega star, I could understand if he was playing someone less commercially known, like Robert Di Niro did with Jake Lamotta in ‘Raging Bull’ but he’s not. Depp is great for the tortured soul sort of rolls but to me he’s not that masculine.

Christian Bale

Christian Bale is my dark horse for the role, he doesn’t’ look particularity like him, but out of all the younger actors today he is possibly the best at playing complex characters, I dunno if he’s be interested in playing another iconic roll though – he’s already been Batamn, John Connor and Bob Dylan (kind of)

Harry Connick Jnr

Harry Conner is the modern day Frank Sinatra and has got the crooner click your finger and sing in a tux roll on lock! I definitely wouldn’t be mad at him being cast, he has acted in films before, I don’t know about him carrying a whole film by himself but he’d definitely be a good choice.

Other possibilities include George Clooney, who Tina Sinatra, Frank’s daughter, has said she would like to play him. I can only see him playing an older Sinatra. Robert Pattinson has threw his hat in the ring himself, I would HATE to see him play Sinatra, whats he gonna play a moping around emo version of Frank

Sinatra is set for realease 2011

I don’t really like reporting rumours due to the fact that 90% of the time it’s just people making up stuff so that people check out their website but as a huge fan of Batman Begins and The Dark Knight this one perked my ears! According to batman-on-film there should be some sort announcement regarding Batman 3 January 2010, what they say is extremely vague and no official source was named so you can take from that what you want. I can imagine Warner Brothers would want to get this film rolling as soon as possible due to the massive success of The Dark Knight commercially, critically and from the audience itself. Christian Bale isn’t attached to any films at the moment (The Fighter finished filming a month or so back) and Christopher Nolan has almost finished shooting Inception (his top secret sci-fi action thriller ’set within the architecture of the mind’ due for release July 16th 2010) so you never know. I can’t see this shooting any earlier than late 2010/early 2011. Talk on someone other than Christopher Nolan directing this seems ridiculous to me.

There’s some scuttlebutt that in early 2010, Warner Bros. and Chris Nolan will finalize the plan for BATMAN 3, according to a solid and longtime BOF source. Whether there will be an announcement or not remains to be seen.

Our guy told BOF that in his opinion, the longer we don’t here a Nolan/B3 announcement in 2010, the less likely it is that the director will return. (I don’t know if I necessarily agree with that since I’m of the belief that Chris has already signed on.)