- guardian.co.uk, Wednesday May 23 2007 10.15 BST
· It seems a long time ago that Daniel Craig was just that nice bloke in the 1996 TV drama Our Friends in the North. He has pitched up in Cannes, sporting a handsome beard and a yellow ribbon (presumably in honour of the missing Madeleine McCann), to celebrate the launch of the Philip Pullman adaptation The Golden Compass. Craig plays Lord Asriel in the movie, which has its UK release at Christmas.
And, aside from the next James Bond blockbuster, he is taking the lead in the forthcoming film from Blood Diamond director Ed Zwick, a tale of the Polish resistance set in the second world war. Before he embarks on that, however, he will star in Baillie Walsh's debut feature, Flashbacks of a Fool, alongside British actors Olivia Williams, Emilia Fox and Helen McCrory. The story relates the fate of a pleasure-seeking British actor whose career takes a sharp downturn as he hits his 40s. We have every confidence that in Craig's case, life will not be imitating art.
· Two more books by British children's authors are to be made into films. Susan Cooper's brilliant 1970s story The Dark Is Rising has been adapted for the screen by Walden, the company behind the Narnia films. To be released in the US in September, the film stars Ian McShane as Merriman, the mysterious Lord of the Light, while Christopher Eccleston plays arch-baddy The Rider. The screenplay is by John Hodge, writer of Trainspotting and Shallow Grave.
Meanwhile, the late Rosemary Sutcliff's The Eagle of Ninth will, it is hoped, be turned into a film by Last King of Scotland director Kevin Macdonald. The story, set in second-century Britain, is about a young centurion named Marcus who travels beyond Hadrian's Wall to discover what happened to the lost Ninth Legion.
Producer Duncan Kenworthy has hinted that it would not look like special-effects movies such as Troy and 300. "I was tired of inflated movies filled with CGI armies and navies that you don't really believe in," he said.
· Rupert Everett, who is to play the headmistress in the forthcoming updated version of the 1950s/60s film series St Trinian's, has divulged his inspiration for the part. He said was basing his portrayal on none other than Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall. "She's a marvellous woman who strides around, works in the garden, goes to parties, wears nice hats. She has a sense of humour, and enjoys a drink and a cigarette. She's my kind of girl."
But how to update this merry, essentially innocent tale of ungovernable gals with their catapults and deep interest in racing form? According to co-director Barnaby Thompson: "It's the antidote to Harry Potter. That is the earnest version of English public schools, and this is the anarchic version."
