For a man whose career is apparently not what it once was, Tom Cruise is making plenty of headlines. Be it for his wonderful cameo in Tropic Thunder, or his attachment to Working Title’s Food Fight, or the news that Valkyrie has changed release date again, or that his long-term producing partner Paula Wagner is stepping down as CEO of their studio, United Artists, or that Angelina Jolie is taking the role in Edwin A. Salt that he had been umming and aahing over, you can’t keep Little Tommy out of the news.
And here’s another story – he’s set to star in a film called The Tourist, based on a French thriller from 2005.
If Cruise signs on – and presumably this is the project that he passed on Edwin A. Salt for – then he’ll play an American tourist in Europe who’s used by a female Interpol agent as a pawn in a deadly game. Sounds like a good move for Cruise – he’s often best when he’s on the run in movies, and this also sounds like it has shades of Roman Polanski’s Frantic, which featured one of Harrison Ford’s best turns. Perhaps a little European jaunt will do Cruise the world of good.
Bharat Nalluri will direct the film for Spyglass Entertainment, from a script by Oscar-winning scribe, Julian Fellowes.
Oh, and by the way, this is not to be confused with that other thriller called The Tourist – the one that George Clooney is attached to. Nor is it to be confused with the Radiohead song from OK Computer. Glad we cleared that up.