Call it The JB Effect (that’s Jack Bauer, Jason Bourne and James Bond), but everyone wants to be a spy action hero these days.
The latest actor signing up to grab a gun and chase down the villains is Hugh Jackman, who will swap Wolverine’s muttonchops for pressed suits and a dead fiancée in the lead role of The Amateur.
It’s being adapted from Robert Litttel’s spy novel by 24 producer Evan Katz and finds Jackman’s lowly CIA cryptographer pushed into action when terrorists bring down his fiancée’s plane. When his bosses refuse to take revenge, he schemes to have them train him to take out the people responsible.
Jackman’s producing the movie, and while Fox 2000 has agreed to finance it, The Amateur will likely need to join the back of Jackman’s busy queue. He’s already busy on seedy drama The Tourist with Ewan McGregor and has a version of the Carousel musical and a comedy (The Rebound Guy) already bobbing around in development, alongside an epic romance film for Baz Luhrmann. Oh, and not forgetting those muttonchops – he’s planning to play Wolverine again in the spin-off as soon as he can find the time. We’d suggest he invests in a TARDIS.
