Entertainment

Screen studs storm stage

Here come the hunks!

Jude Law and Hugh Jackman, two guys who can sell out a theater in about 30 seconds, are coming back to Broadway.

Jackman’s first up, opening Oct. 25 at the Broadhurst for eight weeks in his one-man show, which received rave reviews this summer in Toronto.

Law will arrive next year, riding his own wave of raves in the “Anna Christie” revival at London’s Donmar Warehouse.

That old Eugene O’Neill chestnut has been polished up by director Rob Ashford (“How To Succeed in Business Without Really Trying”). It’s the hottest ticket in London this summer.

Law and Jackman are those rare actors whose names above the title guarantee hefty returns. Two years ago, Law did a star turn in “Hamlet,” while Jackman and Daniel Craig starred in a dreary cop drama, “A Steady Rain.”

Despite mixed reviews, both productions returned something like 175 percent of their investments — at a time when the Dow was stuck below 10,000.

“Anna Christie,” with Ruth Wilson in the title role, ends its limited London run in October. Law and Wilson are tied up doing movies after that, so the production can’t transfer to New York right away.

Ariel Tepper Madover, the Manhattan real estate heiress who produced “Hamlet,” has a deal with the Donmar and will be raising money for next year’s Broadway run.

She should have no trouble: New York producers who caught the show last week have their checkbooks at the ready.

“The first act was two hours, and you don’t even realize it,” one potential backer said. “The play is really old-fashioned, and could be silly. But Rob’s done a wonderful job. It’s great, gripping theater.”

“Anna Christie,” which won the Pulitzer Prize in 1922, tells the story of a woman “with a past” who falls in love with an Irish sailor rescued from a shipwreck. The play has old shanty songs and wonderfully creaky lines — “dat ol’ davil sea” and, most famously, “give me a visky and ginger ale, and don’t be stingy, baby.” If not handled properly, the dialogue can provoke snickers. The key is sexual chemistry between the leads.

Liam Neeson and Natasha Richardson certainly had it in the 1993 Broadway revival. The sparks they set off couldn’t be contained onstage; by the middle of the run, Richardson had left her husband for Neeson, whom she later married.

That same chemistry apparently exists between Law and Wilson, though there’ve been no reports of off-stage shanty sex.

Chemistry between performer and audience should propel Jackman’s one-man show to weekly million-dollar grosses this fall.

Jackman’s slipping in at the last minute because of production delays on the next installment of the “Wolverine” franchise.

It’s a smart move. The fall lineup is dreary, so Broadway can use a shot of that ol’ Jackman magic.

THE boat ain’t leavin’ soon for New York.

A source involved in the revival of “Porgy and Bess” tells me: “You’d better rush up to Boston if you want to see the show.”

And so, to his list of achievements, Stephen Sondheim can add the death of director Diane Paulus‘ “The Gershwins’ Porgy and Bess.”

Sondheim’s now infamous attack on the production, sight unseen, caused The Times’ Ben Brantley to break precedent and review the out-of-town tryout this week.

Brantley praised Audra McDonald, but panned the production. And while McDonald wins Tonys, her name doesn’t sell tickets. I’m told the producers are likely to fold the show after its Boston run.

Look for the Richard Rodgers to go with the revival of “Funny Girl” — unless Brantley goes out to Los Angeles and rips its out-of-town tryout.

michael.riedel@nypost.com