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. Continued on the next page
