Tom Cruise’s only pre-strike movie to date is his small cameo in the Ben Stiller comedy TROPIC THUNDER, but the A-list actor is hoping that EDWIN A. SALT, the Kurt Wimmer scribed drama that would see him play a CIA officer who is accused of being a Russain spy, gets off the ground soon.
Halting the project which needs to have begun production by March is it’s lack of director.

Terry George (HOTEL RWANDA) had held talks about helming the picture when Cruise boarded the project in July but for whatever reason that never led to anything and today’s reports from Entertainment Weekly say Columbia Pictures are now eyeing Peter Berg for the project.

Berg has just come off THE KINGDOM and has just recently wrapped production on his “superhero in crisis movie`’ HANCOCK and would seem avaliable at this point to take up the gig.

Though I must say, If I were Cruise’s agent, I would keep him well away from this picture and would advise him to do something along the same lines as MINORITY REPORT or another INTERVIEW WITH THE VAMPIRE movie.

I think the failure of LIONS FOR LAMBS hit him pretty hard, his biggest flop in years and his public image has been on a downer for too long now. I fear this SALT movie may be as interesting to the public as THE KINGDOM was and that will be disastrous if VALKYRIE can’t find an audience next year either.