Hugh Jackman May Star as Billy Bigelow in New Carousel Film

Tony Award winner Hugh Jackman is in talks with Fox 2000 to star in a new big-screen version of Carousel, according to Variety. Jackman plans to produce the film with John Palermo through their company, Seed Productions.

Jackman would play carnival barker Billy Bigelow, a role he sang opposite Audra McDonald's Julie Jordan in a 2002 Carnegie Hall concert presentation of Carousel. In 1999, he starred as Curly in Trevor Nunn's London production of another Rodgers & Hammerstein classic, Oklahoma!, a performance that was released on DVD in 2003.

Since winning the 2004 Best Actor Tony for playing Peter Allen in The Boy From Oz, Jackman has concentrated on film, completing roles in the third X-Men film The Last Stand, Disney's The Prestige, Warner Bros.'s The Fountain and Woody Allen's Scoop, currently in theaters.

Jackman and Palermo are reportedly opening a production office in Sydney, Australia, where the actor is about to begin a run in The Boy From Oz. In addition to Carousel, Seed Productions is developing an X-Men spinoff spotlighting Jackman's character, Wolverine.