Why Scarlett Johansson is an unlikely Eliza Doolittle

A story put about earlier this week that Scarlett Johansson is to compete with Keira Knightley for the role of Eliza Doolittle in a remake of My Fair Lady is pure speculation, according to a spokesman for Sir Cameron Mackintosh, co-producer of the new film. No casting has yet been announced, he insisted.

This hasn't stopped the rumours, however - first that Knightley (above right) was a shoo-in for the role, and had even begun singing lessons in preparation, and then Sunday's follow-up report that Johansson would be fighting her for the part.

Johansson's name came up after Mackintosh, apparently seeking to throw reporters off the scent, told the Sunday Telegraph: "I have two actresses as potential Elizas, one British, the other American. You'd know their names, but I'm not letting on."

What appears to have happened is that a reporter plumped for Johansson (above left) having spotted that (a) she was once approached by Andrew Lloyd Webber about playing Maria in The Sound of Music and (b) the Lost in Translation actress brought out a debut album last year.

What the reporter failed to take into account was that (a) Lloyd Webber quickly changed his mind and (b) Johansson's album, Anywhere I Lay My Head, was mainly reviled by critics, one of whom wrote it off as "seriously weird". Even her producer described her voice as, "Tinkerbell on cough syrup".

As a result, a straw poll of movie types by The First Post made Johansson a rank outsider for the role of Eliza. Most industry observers believe Knightley will play the role, but if there really is a transatlantic contender then the hot money is on Ellen Page, Amy Adams or - an Eliza for the age of Obama? - the rising young black star, Zoe Saldana.

But that's all hypothetical. What is known for certain is that the new film of My Fair Lady will use the legendary songs of Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe to tell the story of the Cockney flower girl's transformation into a lady, under the tutelage of Professor Henry Higgins.

It is also known that the English actress and screenwriter Emma Thompson is working on the screenplay and, according to an early statement by Mackintosh, is going back to the original George Bernard Shaw story of Pygmalion for inspiration.

Mackintosh and fellow producer Duncan Kenworthy have a hard act to follow in the 1963 classic, which starred Audrey Hepburn as Eliza and Rex Harrison as Higgins and won eight Oscars. But as Mackintosh has said, "The classic story of a flower girl transformed into an instant sensation couldn't be more timely in a contemporary world obsessed with overnight celebrity." ·