The British update: Nighy | Caine | Cox

Bill Nighy can next be heard providing the voice of Rattlesnake Jake in upcoming animation Rango, with Johnny Depp. He will be starring in The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, which has a great cast including Judi Dench, Maggie Smith and Tom Wilkinson. The film is about a group of retired Brits who are enticed to India to live at the recently restored Marigold Hotel, a former palace. He will then reprise his role in the final Harry Potter film before lending his voice to the festive film Arthur Christmas, with James McAvoy, Hugh Laurie and Jim Broadbent. He will also be starring in This Beautiful Fantastic, a film about the love affair between a shy children's author and a wild inventor, alongside Rhys Ifans, Felicity Jones and Rupert Friend. There is also an intriguing new film on the cards called Page 8, no information about the story at the moment but the cast has some impressive names: Ralph Fiennes, Rachel Weisz and Michael Gambon.

 

Michael Caine will be providing the voice of Finn McMissile in the Disney sequel Cars 2, this summer. After that, he will be appearing in Journey 2: The Mysterious Island alongside Dwayne Johnson and Vanessa Hudgens. Next year he is due to star in Henry5, which is rumoured to be a sci-fi/ thriller version of Shakespeare's play, with Derek Jacobi, Ray Winstone, Gerard Depardieu and Vinnie Jones. And then of course there is the much-anticipated Batman sequel The Dark Knight Rises, directed by Christopher Nolan and co-starring a huge cast of well-known actors including Christian Bale, Gary Oldman, Morgan Freeman, Tom Hardy and Anne Hathaway.




Brian Cox will be appearing in The Veteran, a film about a soldier who returns from Afghanistan and discovers a conspiracy involving the intelligence services. Also upcoming is Ironclad, concerning the efforts of the Knights Templar, and featuring a strong cast including Paul Giamatti, Derek Jacobi, James Purefoy and Charles Dance. Later this year, he is appearing in action/ sci-fi Rise of the Apes, a story about genetic engineering leading to intelligent apes and a war for supremacy. James Franco, Andy Serkis and Tom Felton co-star. Finally for Brian Cox this year we have The Home, a horror about a young man sent to a secluded nursing home, only to find that something monstrous is lurking within its walls.

The British update: Rickman | Sheen | Molina

Alan Rickman will continue in his role as Severus Snape in the final two installments of Harry Potter, ‘The Deathly Hallows’ Parts 1 and 2. Next month, to mark National Poetry Day here in the UK, he will star alongside Emma Thompson in The Song of Lunch. A dramatisation of Christopher Reid’s poem, it tells the story of a book editor who meets his former love for lunch after 15 years apart. After this he is due to star in The Villa Golitsyn, adapted from the novel by Piers Paul Read. Unfortunately, further details about cast and plot are unavailable, although the book is described as an “intelligent and gripping thriller of treason and sexual intrigue in the south of France”.

Michael Sheen will be appearing in Disney’s TRON: Legacy (a sequel to the 80s film) hitting cinemas in December, alongside Jeff Bridges and Olivia Wilde. Next year he will head up Jesus Henry Christ, with Toni Collette. This film tells the story of a boy conceived in a petri-dish who, at the age of ten, tries to find his biological father. Next he will be starring in Woody Allen’s Midnight in Paris, with a cast that includes Rachel McAdams, Marion Cotillard, Adrien Brody, Owen Wilson and Kathy Bates. He will then be reprising his role in the Twilight Saga, in Breaking Dawn - Part 2. Also on the cards, although these are only rumours at the moment, is a part in The Codfather, a film about a group of friends in Wales who smuggle millions of pounds worth of drugs hidden in cod. I hope these rumours are true because at the moment the varied cast includes Val Kilmer, Steve Coogan, Oded Fehr, Nick Frost and Julie Walters, amongst others.

Alfred Molina has five upcoming films with one-word titles. First up is Carmel, a film about art forgery in California with Hayden Panettiere, Josh Hutcherson, Billy Boyd and Lauren Bacall. Then there’s the animated film Rango, with a voice cast including Johnny Depp, Bill Nighy, Ray Winstone and Timothy Olyphant. This film is about a chameleon that wants to be a swashbuckling hero. He has a part in next year’s thriller Abduction, alongside Taylor Lautner, Jason Isaacs, Maria Bello and Sigourney Weaver and the film Vivaldi, which also stars Neve Campbell and Gerard Depardieu. Finally there is Poe, a biography of Edgar Allan Poe which incorporates five of his tales. Sounds like an interesting one, although there isn’t much more information available at present, apart from the casting of Dianne Wiest alongside him in the ‘Black Cat’ part of the story.

The British update: Oldman | Thewlis | Isaacs

Gary Oldman, who has been quite quiet in recent years, seems to be getting back on good form with a number of films in the works. After a small reprise as Sirius Black in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part II in July 2011, he will then be lending his vocal talents to the Kung Fu Panda sequel; The Kaboom of Doom before appearing in Easter Sixteen, the story of the 1916 Irish uprising. He is also rumoured to be starring in the Catherine Hardwicke (Twilight) directed Red Riding Hood (2011), based on the fairy tale. For 2012 he has the eagerly awaited next Batman film and Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, as George Smiley, a role originally played by Alec Guinness in the TV series. Adapted from the John Le Carré novel by Peter Morgan (The Queen, Frost/Nixon) and also starring Colin Firth and David Thewlis, this should be a really good film and a great opportunity for him to get back to his best.

David Thewlis can be seen in the upcoming London Boulevard, out on October 15th here in the UK. Directed by William Monahan, the Oscar winning writer of The Departed, this stars Keira Knightley as an actress and Colin Farrell as an ex-con and has been described as a “very British crime thriller”. It also stars Ray Winstone (that’s how you know it’s a British crime movie) and Thewlis’ partner Anna Friel. After this, you can try to catch a glimpse of him as Remus Lupin in the final two Harry Potter films; unfortunately his appearance is likely to be fleeting, as was the case with The Half-Blood Prince. He will then be in the Roland Emmerich directed political thriller Anonymous (2011) alongside Vanessa Redgrave, Joely Richardson and Rhys Ifans, and the Steven Spielberg directed War Horse.

Jason Isaacs will also be appearing in the last two installments of Harry Potter, after that he will be starring in Abduction in 2011. This film is about a young man who sets out to discover the truth about his past after seeing his baby photo on a missing persons website. Described as a Bourne-style thriller, this will be seen as Taylor Lautner’s first chance to show what he’s made of away from the Twilight series. With a cast that also includes Sigourney Weaver, Alfred Molina and Maria Bello, he has very strong support. Apart from lending his voice to the upcoming Castlevania: Lords of Shadow video game, this seems to be all he has on the cards at the moment…