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Tag Archives: Tom-Cruise

Tom Cruise commits some TIMECRIMES

Posted by Matt Holmes on January 19, 2008 – 10:46 am

Filed under Movie News, Sci-Fi

There’s a Spanish movie by the name of TIMECRIMES playing at the Sundance Film Festival this weekend which has caught the eye of Tom Cruise who has just secured a deal for the American remake rights to the feature for his United Artists studio.

Written and directed by Nacho Vigalondo, the movie follows a guy whose time machine travels him back in time nearly an hour and the disasters that occur because of it. The original movie is said to be in the tone of Phillip K. Dick and it could be a project that might suit the Cruise-meister who of course starred in a real Dick adaptation with Spielberg’s MINORITY REPORT.

This movie sounds really cool and the original was made for such a low budget that a Hollywood remake with some money behind it can’t be something to get pissed about. I even like the look of the INVISIBLE MAN like villain even if it does look kinda corny.

No word if Cruise will go after Nacho to direct the mainstream remake or if the director himself would be interested in re-doing the story. I can’t see why he wouldn’t because it’s gigs like this that can get you into Hollywood for the rest of your career.

Trailer for the pretty cool looking original below…

source – variety

Columbia want Berg to direct Cruise’s SALT

Posted by Matt Holmes on December 20, 2007 – 12:57 am

Filed under Movie News, Thriller

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.

VALKYRIE gets scared of WANTED

Posted by Matt Holmes on December 15, 2007 – 9:00 am

Filed under Movie News, War

Bryan Singer’s next movie VALKYRIE has once again gone through a release date change and will now open on October 3rd 2008.

United Artists decided to push back the feature once it learned that Universal had strategically moved WANTED from it’s March opening to June 27th, the same weekend as VALKYRIE and Pixar’s WALL-E.

Not wanting to be part of a three way battle against two bid budgeted movies, the film will now open against Guy Ritchie’s gangster movie RocknRolla (by then, 8 years since Ritchie’s last commercial success) and the Sony comedy NICK AND NORAH’S INFINITE PLAYLIST, starring SUPERBAD’s Michael Cera.

Personally, I didn’t think they needed to worry too much about WANTED but certainly WALL-E was a worry for them. This October release would now seem to make more sense not only because of its competition but also because of the climate of films during that period.

This is more of a serious drama/thriller, and opening at this point should see it win over a certain type of crowd that it wouldn’t in the Summer entertainment season.

Actors without a job pre-strike

Posted by Matt Holmes on December 3, 2007 – 9:25 am

Filed under Movie News

Variety have a nice little update on the actors whose schedules are free in early 2008 and are available to fit in a pre-strike movie if a deal can be arranged.

If there’s a project that a studio wants to go with, there’s no doubt these guys are at the top of the list…

Johnny Depp (after SHANTARAM was delayed because of the strike).

Tom Cruise (just coming off VALKYRIE & a cameo in TROPIC THUNDER)

Tom Hanks (after ANGELS & DEMONS was a strike victim)

Brad Pitt (after he pulled out of STATE OF PLAY)

George Clooney (after he pulled out of WHITE JAZZ, though he will probably be busy until March because he is working on his directed comedy LEATHERHEADS).

But studio’s are likely to be frustrated. It’s not very often that people like Depp, Cruise and Hanks become available for work at the same time but movies that would quickly be put together as starring vehicles for them can’t because they can only go with scripts that have already been locked in and completed because of the WGA strike.

And of course, all of these actors have read all the scripts and know all the projects that are out there. So at this point, it seems there absent from other projects is something they are quite happy to do.

There’s little doubt the strike has played a part in Christian Bale joining the new TERMINATOR movie. With little work out there, it’s either sit on your ass, or go and do a project you might not usually take.

Of course it’s not really these guys who suffer. It’s those actors on the very lower end of the spectrum who become victims here the longer this drags on, because if they haven’t got work already then there aren’t too many projects that will need full out casting.

There’s only so many parts floating around.

And I will leave you on a worrying quote from the trade…

With both sides back at the barricades, many believe the writers strike won’t be resolved until March at the earliest.

A fat and bald Tom Cruise in TROPIC THUNDER

Posted by Matt Holmes on November 18, 2007 – 12:57 pm

Filed under Comedy, Movie News, Tropic-Thunder

I wonder just how much Tom Cruise is getting paid for his cameo in the Ben Stiller directed comedy TROPIC THUNDER…

In the movie he will play an fat and bald studio mogul.

The film follows a group of actors who travel to shoot a B-Movie war picture where the actors themselves are actually forced to become the soldiers they are portraying.

Don’t ask me how that even makes sense, but that’s the plot that we keep hearing. There’s some funny guys in this let me remind you, so maybe it has a chance of being humorous..

Ben Stiller, Robert Downey Jr, Jack Black, Steve Coogan, Nick Nolte and many cameo’s with rumors suggesting Katie Holmes, Matthew McConaughey and Tobey Maguire along with the confirmed Cruise-meister pictured above.

The last time Cruise cameoed in a movie was AUSTIN POWERS: GOLDMEMBER. No details of how much he earned for that cameo but I’m thinking it was probably a tidy sum…

source – moviehole

VALKYRIE trailer is here!

Posted by Will Reynolds on November 8, 2007 – 10:38 pm

Filed under Movie News, Thriller, Updated

UPDATE: Trailer below:-

We promised this yesterday, and now it’s arrived. Enlist for Operation Valkyrie at Yahoo! Movies. Looking good to me!

I’ll update and embed the trailer here when it hits YouTube.

These guys don’t sound German at all!

Posted by Will Reynolds on November 7, 2007 – 8:44 pm

Filed under Movie News, Thriller

According to Hollywood Elsewhere the trailer for Valkyrie is attached to Robert Redford’s Lions For Lambs and will make its online debut on Access Hollywood and Yahoo’s movie site.

I can’t wait for this movie, the script is amazing (although the ending is something of a cop out) and I’m a big fan of Cruise and, Superman Returns aside, Bryan Singer is a great director who’s been stuck playing in the franchise toy box for a bit too long.

One thing I’d been wondering about is the use of accents. Would the cast speak with German accents or go English?

H-E have the answer:-

In any event, a U.K. projectionist has watched the trailer for the WWII thriller, which concerns a German military plot to assassinate Adolf Hitler with Tom Cruise playing ringleader Col. Claus von Stauffenberg, and say it’s “fairly gripping.” He adds no one in the cast is speaking with a German accent a la Marlon Brando in The Young Lions. “All of the [mostly British] cast members use their own accents,” he says. “Kenneth Branagh sounds English. And Cruise just sounds American, although maybe he’s softened it a bit to sound more English.”

That’s a smart move if you ask me. The German accent is quite aggressive and serious and there’s nothing wrong with it, yet whenever a Brit or American actor puts it on I just can’t take them seriously at all. Comedy Nazis would definitely kill the tension in this film.

Generally an audience can accept what’s going on if the cast are all uniform in dialect and English is probably the best way to go. Exceptions to the rule are Oliver Stone’s Alexander cast, who all seemed to be Irish, and Kevin Costner’s Robin Hood who was…. well I don’t what he was trying to do!

Cruise not Pike

Posted by Will Reynolds on October 23, 2007 – 8:12 pm

Filed under Movie News, Sci-Fi

King of movie magazines Empire cornered Tom Cruise on the red carpet at the Lions For Lambs premiere in London and asked him about his rumoured involvement in JJ Abrams’ Star Trek. Those who’ve been following the mill will know that original Enterprise skipper Christopher Pike is slated to feature in the film and Cruise’s name has been mentioned in connection with the part.

“What? No, I’m not in that.” said Cruise. “Nope. It’s just rumour.”

There you have it. I don’t think Cruise would be seen dead in a Star Trek movie, let alone one that is backed by Paramount.

I think this new film needs some much needed star power to get bums on seats. JJ Abrams is spending a lot of money on this new version of Star Trek and, as much as I love Abrams, the film just has box office turkey written all over it.

You can get away with a no name cast for things like Spider-Man and Batman because the character is the star of the show… but Star Trek really, really needs that something extra to persuade people to see it. Even if it’s the greatest movie ever made I doubt it’ll break even.

The idea of Matt Damon as Kirk, Adrien Brody as Spock and Gary Sinise as Bones was a lot more tempting to me.

Cruise and Germany kiss and make up?

Posted by Will Reynolds on September 16, 2007 – 1:03 pm

Filed under Movie News, War

Valkrie hasn’t had the smoothest of shoots up to now. The German government initially didn’t want to play ball with the filmmakers due to star Tom Cruise’s religious beliefs (I would put those words in inverted commas but I’d fear being made fair game) and an accident on set left several extras injured.

Now, however, it seems the film has gotten a much needed stroke of luck. The German Ministry of Defence has granted permission for the Bryan Singer helmed film to shoot at the famous Bendlerblock military building.

The location is pretty integral to the story as it’s not only where the German conspirators came together and hatched their plan to assassinate Hitler, but also where the same conspiritors are executed by Nazi firing squads.

I picked this story up via Hollywood Elsewhere and site editor Jeffrey Wells makes a good point by saying he hopes Singer doesn’t chicken out in the execution scene. It’s not that I dislike Cruise and have the subconcious desire to see his body viciously shredded by bullets, but this movie needs that scene to go the distance if it’s to have any impact.

I can happily watch a Cruise film and divorce myself from his bizarre private life, I enjoy him onscreen and think he’s a great moviestar, but the general movie going public see him as Tom Cruise the indestructable A-lister. Hence I put it to you that it would be a shocking jar to the audience to see Cruise get a brutal and spectacular death.

From what I know about this film and from what’s been in the script, as the orders are given to fire the camera cranes away and into the sky as air raid sirens blare out over Germany.

Anyone who’s studied World War II in school knows how this story ends – so Singer needs to throw out subtlety and ambiguity and go with the nasty ending before the final fade to black.

source – hollywood elsewhere

Cruise to cameo in Star Trek?

Posted by Matt Holmes on August 7, 2007 – 8:48 am

Filed under Movie News

Those ‘Tom Cruise in Star Trek‘ rumors have surfaced again but I can’t help but feel it’s someone just having a laugh at Cruise and Scientology.

IGN have heard from a trusted news source that Cruise is up for the role of Captain Pike. Don’t worry Trek fans, if you don’t know who Pike is you can probably be forgiven. Pike was the Captain of the Enterprise before Kirk and was Spock’s first commanding officer. The character appeared in a two arc story beginning from the first episode in season one. Star Trek mythology says that Spock served Pike for a decade.

With the new Trek movie depicting Kirk’s early days aboard the Enterprise this would seem to make sense and hell Abrams worked with Cruise on Mission Impossible III which was a great success for both guys, so who knows… this isn’t beyond the realms of possibility. I still think someone is having a joke, but it could be true.

Cruise has done cameo’s before, most recently of course in Austin Powers: Goldmember. I would expect a cameo in Trek will be handled a little more seriously than that. IGN are also hearing that they want an A-Lister for the role of the villain.

I kinda like the idea of Cruise as the former Captain and I guess in the new Trek mythology they could always bring him back later as a pissed off villain, who lost his ship to Kirk? I always say new franchises have a great chance to be conscious with their new continuity (and not just have things all over the place like Lost), so if they are smart this could turn out to be very cool in the long run.