Tom Rothman, Chairman at 20th Century Fox, recently talked at length to The IESB about various upcoming Fox projects including "Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer", "Wolverine", "AVP 2", future "X-Men" films and "Live Free or Die Hard" amongst others.

The villain hasn't been signed yet for "Live Free or Die Hard" but they've almost got an American actor locked in, someone described as "very cool and contemporary" and will be announced within the next fortnight.

Fanboys will love that after the all too tame PG-13 "Alien vs. Predator", the approach with AVP2 will be "very hardcore, very R rated". The script is very violent with little resemblance to the first film.

Talk of stand alone "Predator" films still continues but nothing is happening as such on that front. As for more "Alien" films, if Ridley Scott wanted to do another would Fox be up for it? "If Ridley would ever do it, we would do it in a second".

Despite the script leakage, they are no where near a finished script on "Wolverine". No script has been received yet for "Magneto" either.

Rothman won't confirm or deny what new characters appear in "Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer" aside from the previously announced Silver Surfer and the cosmically powerful Galactus. The Surfer, which will be "very, very faithful" design wise to the comic, will be state of the art CGI and a lot of money is being spent on the effect in the hope that it could lead to a spin-off series. Our first glimpse will come with the teaser trailer very early in the new year.

Finally the Baz Luhrman/Nicole Kidman/Hugh Jackman film is aiming to begin filming February or March in Australia, no title at present though he describes it as a adventure/romance along "African Queen" and "Out of Africa" lines.

For more from this extensive interview, click here.