Tom Cruise Or Angelina Jolie: The Lesser Of Two Evils?
Actors and actresses are replaced in movies all the time. Whether it’s a contract dispute, scheduling conflicts, unplanned pregnancy, injury, or some other reason, sometimes it’s necessary to go with another choice. However, usually you replace like for like…actor for actor, and actress for actress. Not so, however, with the spy movie Edwin A. Salt, getting ready to go into production, because rumor is that Tom Cruise is out and Angelina Jolie is in:
Once expected to star Tom Cruise, the Columbia Pictures espionage thriller will be redrafted by screenwriter Kurt Wimmer as a star vehicle for Angelina Jolie. Philip Noyce remains attached as director and Lorenzo di Bonaventura and Sunil Perkash are producing.
Jolie is close to a deal to play the title character, a CIA officer who’s accused by a defector of being a Russian sleeper spy and must elude capture long enough to establish her innocence.
Cruise had long flirted with the project, but that ended recently. The well-regarded script had several male movie stars circling.
Jolie took a liking to it, prompting the studio’s decision to rewrite it. Sources said the project won’t require that much of an overhaul to suit her.
It is being said that Tom is considered “too old” to play spy-type action heroes:
[A]t 46, Cruise is thought to be too old and too expensive to star in the next “Mission Impossible” sequel. “Cruise is begging for ‘MI4,’ but Paramount wants a younger, cheaper guy,” a source told Page Six. “He had a tantrum and ran out of the meeting.”
Well, this seems like a no-win situation any way you look at it. On the one hand, you’ve got a meglomaniac cult member who, over the past several years, has managed to get the Midas touch in reverse. People just aren’t interested in seeing him any longer, and much of that can possibly be attributed to his involvement in the cult of Scientology, his increasingly weird behavior off-screen, and his questionable ability to pick and manage his own projects (Lions For Lambs, anyone?). Plus, as the article said, he’s just become both too expensive to buy and too much of a pain in the tuchas to deal with.
But on the other hand, you’ve got a child-hoarder maneater with some possible mental issues, adopting half the world to fill some emotional need within herself, who just gave birth to twins and who ought to be considering staying in one place for longer than a couple of months at a stretch and raising her family. All that aside, how much longer can Angelina do thrillers and action movies? In the eyes of Hollywood, she’s getting a bit long in the tooth herself to be playing that sort of role (personally, I think actresses get better as they get older…uh, generally speaking). I predict her career as an action hero won’t last much longer, and she just doesn’t have the dramatic chops to segue into more serious roles. Let’s face it, she’s no Meryl Streep. This sort of movie sounds like the sort of thing she’s made a career at, but she’d better grab it now while she can.
I personally don’t think that Tom’s age had as much to do with the casting as people want us to think. Let’s take a look at Pierce Brosnan, who just turned 55…he was 42 when GoldenEye was released, 46 when The Thomas Crown Affair was released (in the movie, Faye Dunaway’s character said he was a few years younger…and btw, Rene Russo was 45 when that film was released), 49 when Die Another Day was released, and he’s getting ready to reprise his Thomas Crown character in a new film (which might have Angelina Jolie in it…ugh, wasn’t it bad enough that he had to co-star with Denise Richards?). 
Not convinced? Okay, let’s look at Harrison Ford…66 when the last Indiana Jones movie was released! I dare anyone to tell Indy that he’s too old. And these two actors are hawt hawt hawt…unlike Tom, who in my opinion has not aged well.
Nope, not buying it. While ageism is rampant in Hollywood, I don’t think that has anything to do with this particular recasting decision. I can’t say I’m thrilled with either of the choices offered, but I also don’t think many actors want Tom’s sloppy seconds.
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I agree, it has nothing to do with age and everything to do with the fact that people simply do not like Tom Cruise.
Comment by Rachel — August 13, 2008 @ 3:43 pm
Looks that way to me too. He really needs to do some lighthearted fluff that will perhaps counter the heaviness that is his image right now. Maybe just some more sliding around in the hallway in his giant tighty-whiteys.
)
Comment by Jannah — August 13, 2008 @ 11:20 pm
Tom Cruise is like poison to a movie nowadays, no one wants him, they can’t if they want their movies to float. It won’t be long before we just read about him in the history books
Comment by Halkion — August 13, 2008 @ 11:39 pm
Wow, it’s amazing on how you people have a grip on other people’s lives. What do you have in your wallet?
Comment by Eva — August 16, 2008 @ 10:02 am
I can’t stand either one of them any more. The cult has ruined not only Tom’s career, but also his arranged and phoney marraige, Katie Holme’s life, Suri’s life, his other two kid’s lives, and Katie’s parent’s lives and Tom’s life.
He’s done being on the “A list” for a while now, if not for ever. IN MY OPINION.
And as far as Anjelina Jimmy Deana (my nickname for her because of her sausgae like lips.. you know Jimmy Dean Sausage?) is way too “mommied out” to do any kind of convincing roll. I don’t much care for home wreckers either or people who insist on adopting all of their children out of the US when there are SO many needy babies here to adopt waiting for homes.
IN MY OPINION.
Oh!!!! and it doesn’t matter what anyone has “in their wallet” either. It’s people’s opinions. Which we are entitled to.
Comment by Don;t Like Either One of Them — August 16, 2008 @ 1:09 pm
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[...] we reported way back in August, rumors were flying that Angelina had been tapped to replace Tom in the new spy thriller [...]
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