As Hollywood rolls into awards' season, the head honchos at Universal Pictures and Focus Features are probably busy plotting for 2013 having landed the rights to the Fifty Shades of Grey movie. Warner Bros, Sony Pictures, Paramount and Mark Wahlberg's company all placed bids for the rights in one of fiercest movie bidding wars of recent times. Despite the general critical mauling of E.L. James book (though massive sales figures), the movie boasts a pretty impressive team. The Social Network producers Michael De Luca and Dana Brunetti have signed on while Terra Nova's Kelly Marcel will pen the script.

But that's all the boring stuff. We want to know who's playing Christian Grey and Anastasia Steele right? Murmurings around Hollywood suggest Ryan Gosling is pretty much everyone's first choice to play the wealthy protagonist. Universal want Gosling, the producers want Gosling, the fans want Gosling, hell, Gosling probably wants the role himself. Irish bookmaker Paddy Power have the Drive actor as 2/1 favourite, though one man threw a pretty giant spanner into the works this week. He's the third favourite with the bookmaker, he plays Superman in the forthcoming movie Man of Steel. He is Henry Cavill. 

The 29-year-old British actor - who screen-tested for the role of James Bond before Daniel Craig got the part - discussed Fifty Shades of Grey during a recent interview with Details magazine. When quizzed as to whether he would take the role, Cavill gave a curious answer. Whereas Gosling, Ian Somerhalder and Michael Fassbender have coyly laughed off suggestions of becoming Mr Grey, Cavill said, "Whether that happens, that decision will be made at the time it has to be made. It would be a very different kind of thing than Man of Steel." The interviewer observed that Cavill spoke in "the measured tones of someone who knows his way around a Hollywood gag order."

Only time will tell.