Jim Caviezel may play another superman.

After playing Jesus Christ in Mel Gibson's smash hit, The Passion of the Christ, the devout Catholic is the frontrunner to play Clark Kent, the mild mannered reporter for The Daily Planet.

Of course, as everyone on this planet knows, when evil beckons, when trouble is on the horizon, Mr Kent metamorphoses into 'Look up in the sky! It's a bird! It's a plane! No, it is Superman!'

Bryan Singer, who directed both the cult classic The Usual Suspects as well as the X-Men series, will champion the latest version of the classic comic superhero.

Others being considered for the role: Brendan Fraser (The Mummy, The Mummy Returns, who spurned a movie opposite our very own Aishwarya Rai because his wife's expecting); Jude Law (is there any role the Brit is not in the running for; he is even being considered for 007) and sleepy eyed Josh Hartnett (once billed as the Next Sexiest Thing in the Western World, he has lost some gloss after the clunkers Hollywood Homicide and 40 Days and 40 Nights).

Matt Damon too was being considered  to play the Man of Steel in a project to be anchored by Troy director Wolfgang Peterson. That flick will pit Superman against his old ally in fighting crime, Batman. But The Bourne Supremacy star has nixed the enterprise on the ground that he doesn't look like what he thinks Superman should look like.

Dan Harris and Michael Dougherty -- who wrote X-Men 2 and the forthcoming X-Men 3 and are working on Logan's Run with Singer -- will work on the screenplay for the Superman film.

Singer's film is scheduled for a 2006 release.

The last Superman film appeared in 1978. It was directed by Richard Donner, who also made the horror classic, The Omen. Superman starred Christopher Reeve as a memorable Man of Steel -- sadly, Reeve is now a prisoner of a wheelchair after a riding accident.

Marlon Brando was paid $5 million to play Superman's father, the scientist Jor-El from Krypton -- a role that lasts just 10 minutes on screen.