The new action heroines

Angelina Jolie's upcoming role in Salt was originally intended for Tom Cruise. Photo / Supplied

Hollywood may be a man's world but there are some films that would be nothing - or at least a lot less - without a woman in the lead role. Producers of a spate of new films and television series are ditching male actors and casting women in roles originally written for men.

Angelina Jolie's latest film, Salt, will be released in the UK in August. Her character, Evelyn Salt, has to kick ass, shoot straight and ride fast motorbikes while trying to prove she's not a Russian sleeper agent. It's the kind of film you'd expect Tom Cruise to star in - and he was originally supposed to. When he dropped out, the character's name was changed from Edwin to Evelyn after Jolie expressed an interest.

Prime Suspect star and Oscar-winning actress Helen Mirren has just signed up to star opposite Russell Brand in the remake of the 1981 comedy classic Arthur. In the original, Dudley Moore played a drunken playboy, and Sir John Gielgud won an Oscar for his part as Arthur's valet. That valet role has been rewritten as a nanny to accommodate Mirren.

On television, sci-fi fans can see the Emmy award-winning "reimagining" of Battlestar Galactica. Except the part of cigar-smoking, heavy-drinking ace pilot Lieutenant Starbuck - played by Dirk Benedict in the 1978 original - is filled by Katee Sackhoff.

Also on TV, both leading American networks, CBS and NBC, have cast Oscar-winning actresses - Kathy Bates and Sissy Spacek - in parts originally written for men in two new dramas.

Stella Bruzzi, a professor of film studies at Warwick University, said the "androgynous woman" allowed Hollywood to address issues of sexism without actually changing its output. "There's a view that only boys and men watch films like Die Hard," she said. "It's not true, but casting a woman is intended to broaden the appeal to women and girls.

"And ever since Terminator 2, Hollywood has been attracted to the androgynous woman, which allows producers to expand female roles without actually addressing the issues that lead to accusations of sexism - that there are few decent roles for older women."

- INDEPENDENT