Phillip Noyce has become the third director attached to the C.I.A. thriller Edwin A. Salt, a movie that Tom Cruise is STILL attached too despite two previous attempts at making the film coming undone.

Noyce will be hoping to succeed where Peter Berg (who tried to rush the project through during the WGA strike) and Terry George failed.

The drama casts Cruise as a CIA officer who’s accused by a defector of being a Russian sleeper spy. He must elude capture long enough to clear his name.

Kurt Wimmer (Equilibrium, The Recruit) wrote the screenplay and I’ve gotta say, Noyce is the most suited man for this project over the two previous mentioned. He has some real credentials in this genre having directed Patriot Games and Clear and Present Danger with Harrison Ford in the 90’s.

The film is setup at Columbia and once again it has to deal with potential strike problems as to whether it could shoot this summer or not. This could be a nice straight forward thriller to get Cruise back on track.