It’s such a painfully slow news day that I’m going to commit the New Cardinal Sin of Movie News Reporting, and do the old shortlist post.

According to Variety, these eight men are the current contenders:

Jose Padilha
Doug Liman
Antoine Fuqua
Mark Romanek
Justin Lin
Gavin O’Connor
James Mangold
Gary Shore (a man of commercials, looking for his big feature break.)

If Hugh Jackman prefers an old friend behind the camera, he might pick James Mangold, who helmed Kate and Leopold way back when. But if he wants the next best thing to Darren Aronofsky, he should pick Mark Romanek.

So, all together now: Romenek! Romanek! Romanek!