Michael Fassbender is very busy. And that's a good thing.

http://www.thefemmebot.com/2010/08/27/michael-fassbender-is-very-busy-and-thats-a-good-thing/

One of our favorite actors right now is Michael Fassbender, who has been wowing international audiences with his varied performances in FISH TANK, THE DEVIL’S WHORE, Francois Ozon’s ANGEL, HUNGER, and Quentin Tarantino’s INGLORIOUS BASTERDS.

This weekend, his newest film hits theaters: CENTURION, an intense, violent historical tale of Roman soldiers lost in the wilds of early AD Northern Britian, struggling to survive against fierce local warriors. Fassbender holds his own during brutal battle scenes that any fan of GLADIATOR, 300, or SPARTACUS: BLOOD AND SAND will enjoy immensely.

But for us ladies in the audience, some of Fassbender’s future projects hold much more promise to thrill and entertain. Let’s take a look at what is coming up for this smart, intense, German-by-way-of-Scottish actor…

Michael Fassbender and Dominic West, who share the screen in CENTURION, previously appeared together in the powerful 2008 UK television miniseries THE DEVIL'S WHORE.

This week you can catch INGLORIOUS BASTERDS on cable, CENTURION in theaters (and coming to DVD/BluRay November 2), and HUNGER on Netflix Instant Watch. Unfortunately ANGEL is not available in the US on DVD or VOD, which is a true shame.

For us Fassbender junkies there is also plenty more to come:

Earlier this spring, he filmed the lead role of Mr. Rochester in Cary Fukunaga’s reworking of the classic novel JANE EYRE, co-starring Mia Wasikowska (ALICE IN WONDERLAND) and featuring a great supporting cast: Dame Judi Dench, Jamie Bell, Sally Hawkins. The release date is currently set for March 2011.

The first still released from the set of JANE EYRE thus far...

He is currently shooting David Cronenberg’s new film A DANGEROUS METHOD, from a script by Christopher Hampton (ATONEMENT, DANGEROUS LIASONS). Here Fassbender plays fledgling psychiatrist Carl Jung, opposite Viggo Mortensen as Jung’s mentor, Sigmund Freud. Keira Knightley co-stars as a woman who comes between these two men. Photos of the actors on set, and a bit of video with German narration, have surfaced during shooting recently. This film does not yet have a distributor (and therefore, no announced release dates); but with this pedigree we can hope hard for plenty of film festival play — and eventually some sort of release.

Sigmund Freud & Carl Jung, in life and on film. If anyone can make this captivating, it is David Cronenberg.

Next up: this fall shooting commences on the new X-Men comic book film, X-MEN: FIRST CLASS, to be directed by Matthew Vaughn with a script developed by Bryan Singer and the writers of THOR and KICK-ASS. Fassbender is co-starring with James McAvoy here, the two playing 20-something versions of the characters that Ian McKellen and Patrick Stewart have portrayed previously (Magneto and Professor X, respectively). Joining them, as per usual in the X-MEN franchise, is a varied and impressive supporting cast including Rose Byrne (DAMAGES) as Moira MacTaggert, Kevin Bacon as Sebastian Shaw, Edi Gathegi (TWILIGHT) as Darwin, Jason Flemyng as Azazel, Oliver Platt as The Man in Black, and January Jones (MAD MEN) as Emma Frost.

Later in the fall Fassbender will be co-starring in the next project from director Tomas Alfredson (LET THE RIGHT ONE IN) — a new adaptation of the John Le Carre novel TINKER, TAILER, SOLDIER, SPY. Yet again there is a great cast: Gary Oldman, Colin Firth and Ralph Fiennes. Hopefully this action thriller will be on a fast track to come out in 2011.

Already in the can and announced for a January 2011 release is Steven Soderbergh’s HAYWIRE, an action spy thriller with Fassbender, Ewan McGregor, Michael Douglas, Channing Tatum, Antonio Banderas, Michael Angarano, Mathieu Kassovitz and Bill Paxton. Pretty incredible lineup, eh?

Jim Jarmusch (BROKEN FLOWERS, DEAD MAN) has recently revealed a planned project that would star Fassbender, Tilda Swinton, and JANE EYRE’S Mia Wasikowska. WOW. We wait, we hope…such is the life of the Jarmusch fan.

This October, Xbox releases FABLE 3, a game featuring voicing by Fassbender, along with Simon Pegg and Stephen Fry. The game previewed this summer at the E3 conference — and gamer girls will apparently enjoy it, as this preview piece attests.

IMDB also has our man listed in two other film projects; there are few details, so for now consider them rumors – BIRDSONG, and AT-SWIM-TWO-BIRDS.

We broads here at FemmeBot are not the only ones paying such close attention to Mr. Fassbender — Cinematical beat me to this post by a day, as it turns out — but he is absolutely one of our favorite actors right now. Keep an eye out for all these films…

Fassbender appeared in the UK television series HEX. Rent it while you're waiting for all these new films to get to theaters!

August 27th, 2010