Considering all the women I know who love Colin Firth, I am shocked that he doesn't get more romantic leading roles. But then, maybe that is his choice? Seeing as he appears in such a diverse range of films these days, it could be that he is perfectly in control of what he wants. And apparently he wants to do the occasional movie for the kids. After making himself familiar to the tweens by showing up in What a Girl Wants and Nanny McPhee, he is now further increasing his chances of one day winning a Kid's Choice Award by signing on to The Moon Princess. Formerly titled The Little White Horse, which is the name of the book that is based upon, The Moon Princess is a live-action family-friendly fantasy about a 13-year-old girl who enters a magical world in order to put an end to an ancient curse. Firth will be playing the girl's eccentric uncle (though the IMDb lists his part as a dual role).

The Moon Princess will be directed by Hungarian-born filmmaker Gabor Csupo, who earned his cred with the kids and the studios this year with the very successful adaptation The Bridge to Terabitha, his directorial debut. If he does just as well with this similar-sounding follow-up, I bet he'll be offered a chance at a whole fantasy franchise. If it isn't that good, Csupo will probably still be okay. As a producer/co-creator of the cartoons Rugrats and The Wild Thornberrys, as well as one of the original animators for The Simpsons, he isn't really that new to Hollywood. No other casting choices have been announced yet, but hopefully Terabitha's AnnaSophia Robb will be chosen as the lead since I can't think of any other 13-year-old with as much appeal or talent right now (forget Dakota Fanning who should never be cast in a fantasy film). Regardless of who else is involved, though, I'm enough interested thanks to Firth. If I could watch part of What a Girl Want because of him, I can watch anything because of him.

I don't know when the last time Michael Winterbottom took a vacation was, but considering the pace with which he's been putting out movies lately, it couldn't have been a long one. Currently he's directing Angelina Jolie in A Mighty Heart, and now he's got his next project all lined up to begin shooting in the spring. The film is called Genova, and it will star Colin Firth as a widowed man haunted by ghosts of his past while moving to Italy with his teen daughters.

Now, considering I'll watch anything Winterbottom does (I just hope he doesn't do any more semi-pornographic films) and I'll also watch anything Firth is in (yes, even What a Girl Wants), I guess I'll technically need to see this film twice. Not that I'll mind. I'm actually pretty excited to see how Winterbottom handles the contemporary ghost story genre, especially if he shoots it in his usual hand-held-plus-improv style, which could give it a fittingly uneasy tone.

How this news affects the IMDb-listed Winterbottom project Murder in Samarkand is unknown, though I wouldn't put it past the director to do them both next year, maybe back to back. He could just abandon or pass on the film, which will be based on Craig Murray's memoir "Murder in Samarkand: A British Ambassador's Controversial Defiance of of Tyranny in the War on Terror," considering it might too closely link itself, Heart and the brilliant The Road to Guantanamo as some sort of terror-torture trilogy (sounds catchy, but also sounds like the Saw films). If he does go forward and make it after Genova, let's hope the film maker is then ready for another comedy.

What do Colin Firth and Rage Against the Machine have in common? Well, aside from knowing how to rock (What, you didn't see Firth in leather pants in What a Girl Wants?), they also both support Mumia Abu-Jamal, the former Black Panther who has been in prison for 25 years for allegedly killing being wrongly accused of killing a police officer. Firth is producing a documentary titled In Prison My Whole Life, which focuses on Abu-Jamal. But get this: The doc also concentrates on the life of William Francome, a middle-aged white guy. Turns out Francome was born on the day of the shooting, and since Firth is also a middle-aged white guy, he became a point of entry into the life of the supposed cop-killer. Now does it all make sense? Didn't think so.

All that matters is that Firth has just stepped up on my staircase of favorite actors. And let's hope that Abu-Jamal will be brushing up on his Jane Austen in the event the actor drops in for a visit.