Franchise director George Miller hasn’t decided what strapping new actor — if any — will be stepping into the boots last worn by the now 53-year-old Gibson.

“It could be Mel, it could be anyone….”

Charlize Theron didn’t have the consent of Nelson Mandela to put a meeting with him under the hammer at an auction last week.

The actress auctioned a meeting with the former South African president at a charity event in San Francisco earlier this month — the same event where she famously smooched another woman — but the Nelson Mandela Foundation said a meet-and-greet with the anti-apartheid icon needed “a rigorous process” and that the South African-born star was yet to send in a request.

“Not even the charity foundations Mandela himself established are allowed to auction off time with him,” NMF’s chief executive Achmat Dangor Dangor said in a statement to the BBC on Wednesday.

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South African-born actress Charlize Theron auctioned off a kiss in Hollywood last night and the winning bidder was a woman!

The 34-year-old Monster star took part in a live auction during a gala for the charity OneXOne Thursday in San Francisco. She was initially selling a 2010 trip to South Africa that included World Cup tickets, a safari and a meet-and-greet with former President Nelson Mandela — but she raised the stakes after bidding stalled at $37,000, far less than Jeremy Piven had just raised. To sweeten the pot a bit, she offered up a seven-second kiss for $130,000 to a male bidder, but a woman in the audience quickly bettered the deal with a $140,000 bid in exchange for a peck that lasted approximately twenty seconds.

“My boyfriend is not here tonight,” Charlize joked of long-time beau Stuart Townsend.

No reason has been given for Charlize’s departure..

The Tourist is a remake of the 2005 French thriller Anthony Zimmer. The plot follows an American tourist traveling abroad who is seduced by a beautiful woman and becomes caught in an international plot involving Interpol and the Russian mafia who both mistake him for a criminal mastermind.

Sam Worthington, of Terminator: Salvation and Avatar, has already signed on to play the male lead.

The Tourist is slated to begin shooting in early 2010.

The South African actress, who won a Best Actress Oscar for playing serial killer Aileen Wuornos in 2003 film Monster, was overjoyed to learn that she has joned high profile contenders Megan Fox and Angelina Jolie as one of the stars up for the coveted role previously played by Eartha Kitt, Julie Newmar, and Halle Berry.

“That’s kick-ass news…. I think what has happened to that franchise is amazing. CHRIS NOLAN is a genius. I would be an idiot to not consider that part,” Charlize told The Daily Express this week.

“I just know I’m going to have five boys,” the Academy Award-winning “Monster” star says of the prospect of children with her longtime boyfriend, actor Stuart Townsend. “We’ve been together for almost nine years, so by now we’ve kind of realized that we’re going to take this journey together.”

Charlize Theron spent four nights in a Los Angeles hospital last week after contracting a violent stomach virus, The National Enquirer claims.

The South African-born star — who won an Academy Award for her role in the biopic Monster - sought medical attention after she began suffering severe abdominal pangs during the final week of June.

Her boyfriend Stuart Townsend took her to Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, where she was diagnosed with a potentially fatal stomach virus it is thought she contracted while traveling out of the country.

“I was scared to death. I had no idea what was happening to her, but this is a woman who never complains, so I knew it had to be serious,” Townsend reportedly told pals.

Charlize was treated with antibiotics and later released.

Academy Award winner Charlize Theron has been named a United Nations Messenger Of Peace for her work towards ending violence against women.

Celebrities chosen as messengers of peace are asked to promote U.N. activities through public appearances.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, fellow Oscar-winning actress Charlize Theron will play Wegener’s American wife, Greta, who prompted the transformation by asking her husband to pose as a female opera singer for one of her potraits.

Oscar-winning South-African actress Charlize Theron has settled a $20 million suit that accused her of breaching her contract as spokemodel with Swiss watchmaker Raymond Weil.

Terms of the settlement have not been released.