After a short but undeniably sweet cameo in X-Men: First Class, Hugh Jackman is back on the big screen this week in Real Steel, a (slightly) futuristic tale about an ex-boxer in a time when robot fighters have replaced humans. Hugh's Charlie Kenton is a down-on-his-luck controller of battling 'bots who is forced to face up to the mistakes of his past when he is reunited with the son he abandoned.

The films is based on the short story Steel, by the horror/fantasy/sci fi writer Richard Matheson, whose work has proved to a fertile source for film and TV adaptations - among them The Incredible Shrinking Man, What Dreams May Come, Duel, A Stir of Echoes, Hell House, I Am Legend and Bid Time Return (filmed as Somewhere In Time)

Matheson also adapted Steel into an episode for The Twilight Zone, with Lee Marvin playing the unlucky scrapper, and penned the famous Nightmare at 20,000 Feet for the show. His Star Trek episode, The Enemy Within, is considered one of the best

Real Steel is aimed more at a family audience, its rather bleak story line given a little redemptive heart by introducing the character of Charlie's son Max (Dakota Goyo).

Alison Jones met Hugh on his recent visit to London.

Comic book legend Alan Moore, 57, will read from his work Mirror Of Love with rock band The Enid (theenid.co.uk) at Birmingham's Symphony Hall on Saturday, Oct 15.

Best known for his 1986 comic book series Watchmen, the creator of V For Vendetta and From Hell, took 60 seconds in the Metro to talk about his career, his conflicted feelings about his earlier works and the fallout of his turbulent relationship with publisher DC Comics.

Still bereft over the end of Harry Potter? The world become a little too muggle for you?

The exploits of the boy wizard were celebrated in this unusual tribute at the recent Nailympics at Olympia Beauty in London. Fantasy Nail Art is an admittedly niche extension of the manicurists' craft where practitioners can create the most elaborately-themed creations on little more than a fingertip.

These totally whacky talons are impressive to look out but probably not recommended for people whose lifestyle requires them to use a keyboard or...you know...their hands.

What made you pick trolls as the subject for your first film?

I have a love for this kind of monster movie. The only time I have ever dropped my jaw in that kind of cliché way is when I was watching the T. rex come out of the forest in Jurassic Park. It was so awesome it made a huge impact on me and I was 20 when I saw that, I wasn't a 10-year-old kid. 

So that was really influential on me wanting to do a film like this. Obviously fairy tales are the basis of the film. As a kid I grew up with these fairy tales and I always loved those drawings that depicted monsters in our own forests. 

Our family had property in the woods, so I have always been close to nature somehow. 

Did you do research into the folklore of trolls?

I didn't really do much research. I wanted to be so general that the audience would recognise it. 

If I went into the fairy tales and really found details there, the audience wouldn't know what I was talking about basically. I would have spent lots of time explaining stuff. 

It was much easier to use stuff that everyone in Norway knows about. Those big ideas that stick to your mind. Trolls under bridges and the blood of a Christian man.

Director Jon Favreau thinks that the Cowboys and Aliens film is his "finest work".

However, his cautious post script of "whether it is something that is the most commercially accessible I don't know" has proved to be rather prophetic.

The mash up of Old West gunslingers vs technologically superior, multi armed ETs has met with somewhat lukewarm reviews and rather lacklustre box office.

Jon says he has no regret about taking the project in as it gave him a chance to breakaway from the superhero genre in which he's had most success.

Yoda sports a Zapata moustache, knotted sideburns and pigtails in a number of sketches included in ImagineFX's Star Wars special.

The mini Jedi master appears as he has never been seen him before in Iain McCaig concept sketches for 1999's The Phantom Menace - sporting an impressive Mohawk in one and a 'tache, 'burns and beard combo in another.

Also included in the special is the design by Lucasfilm's Aaron McBride for a combat robot, an addition to the Empire's army and a cousin of the iconic AT-ST walker from Return of the Jedi.

ImagineFX's collaboration with Lucasfilm - to celebrate the release of Star Wars: The Complete Saga on Blu-ray - brings together artists from all six films.

Academy Award-winning artist Ralph McQuarrie recounts the creation of Star Wars: A New Hope, and award-winning painter Greg Hildebrandt reveals how he created the classic 1977 film poster.

There is an in-depth feature called Crafting the Prequels which talks to the artists who shaped the most recent films - showing how characters like Darth Maul and Jar Jar Binks were created.

There are also exclusive workshops show readers how to paint iconic Star Wars characters themselves

"Star Wars is the most iconic film series of all time," says Claire Howlett, editor of ImagineFX,

"These new unseen images and interviews provide a unique look into how the films were created by George Lucas and his team."

ImagineFX's Star Wars special goes on sale on today (August 23), priced £5.99. It's also available digitally at www.zinio.com/imaginefx-single. For more information visit www.imaginefx.com.

It was a silver lining in the otherwise grey cloud of the postponement of Bond 23 when MGM ran into financial difficulties.

These issues have now been resolved and filming is set to start this autumn with a release date of October next year.

Javier Bardem, Rhys Ifans and reportedly Ralph Fiennes, now he has finished unsuccessfully battling boy wizards, are all signed up to join Daniel and Judi Dench, reprising her role as M.

"(Director) Sam Mendes is doing it. We are having constant conversations about it, about where the script is at it is in a really good place," says Daniel.

"I am as excited about reading this script as I was  about reading Casino Royale.

"The only thing we have said to each other is we both as English men and fans of Bond movies since we were kid is to make the best James Bond movie we can possibly do and that is what we are going to have a go at doing."

Andy Serkis has become the go-to guy for mo-cap ever since his unforgettable turn as the jewellery-coveting, daylight-dodging Hobbit Gollum in The Lord of the Rings.

It was the actor's first collaboration with Weta Digital, Jackson's New Zealand-based digital effects company. Since then he has proven to be a great evangelist for performance capture and has helped develop it in films such as King Kong, The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn and now Rise of the Planet of the Apes.

He also helped bring the technology to videogames with Ninja Theory's 2007 action adventure Heavenly Sword, in which he played the evil King Bohan.

In the new prelude to the classic science fiction series Planet of the Apes, Serkis is Caesar, a chimpanzee whose mother was injected with a new drug designed to combat the effects of Alzheimer's disease. As a side effect, Caesar is born with an enhanced level of intelligence and is raised, in secret, by scientist Will Rodman (James Franco). When he becomes too much for Will to care for, he's sent to an ape sanctuary where he is cruelly treated.

Rise of the Planet of the Apes, the second feature by director Rupert Wyatt, suggests the origin of the apes' dominion over humanity and the chimpanzee that would lead the revolution.

Serkis is busy reprising his role as Gollum in Peter Jackson's The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey and The Hobbit: There and Back Again, but took time out to talk about how hard it was to nail Caesar.