Tom Cruise Commits Career Suicide.......Again!
Thu, May 28, 2009 
In 2005 Tom Cruise was the undisputed king of Hollywood, an untouchable force of revenue generating megastardom, then he jumped on a couch, dissed Brooke shields and crashed off his perch. In 2006 the effects of these actions manifested in the lower than expected domestic take for Mission Impossible 3, a movie many regarded as the best in the series. After this Cruise went into rebuild mode and dropped out of big blockbusters altogether.
Last year saw the start of a comeback, firstly with the movie stealing turn as Les Grossman in the highly popular 'Tropic Thunder' and then with a good performance in the fairly well received and solid box office hit 'Valkyrie' which was a high end drama/thriller. However news comes from Variety that Tom has decided to undo his good work and shoot himself in the foot.
Tom Cruise is zeroing in on the 20th Century Fox action comedy "Wichita" as his next star vehicle.
He'll pair with Cameron Diaz in the James Mangold-directed film. That ends a serious courtship that the star had since January with some of the highest-profile projects in Hollywood.
According to sources, Cruise and Diaz have approved the script, and their deals are in advanced negotiations. While Fox has not officially dated the picture, sources said the studio is eyeing a summer 2010 release.
The script has been through many machinations, but the most recent drafts were done by Scott Frank, with Mangold currently fine-tuning the script with Laeta Kalogridis ("Shutter Island"). Two-hander has several action scenes.
Cruise will play a secret agent who pops in and out of the life of a single woman.
Sweet mother of God! do the words Cameron Diaz, Rom com and Fox not tell Cruise this is a huge error ? Hell even the worlds most desperate actor knows this has disaster written all over it. Cruise has always been so adept at choosing projects so this choice utterly baffles me when he had the option to do Motorcade (Speed meets Air Force One) and get back in the big summer action blockbuster game. Instead it's like he has rummaged through Luke Wilson's "To do" pile.
For the record I like Cameron Diaz personally, she seems nice and a lot of fun, but her movie choosing often leaves much to be desired and Fox studios are the biggest purveyor of mindless junk there is in the big US studio system. I know some will cite that the talented James Mangold is directing and that the equally talented Scott Frank wrote the most recent draft, but to use a famous quote - Ive got a bad feeling about this....Good luck getting a third chance Tom.
Reader Comments (1)
I reasd this post and that THUD I heard therafter was my jaw hitting the floor.
I'm going to be one of those who WILL cite James Margold. What the heck does the man have to do?
He keeps up coming with hit after hit (3:10 To Yuma also had a cameo by Luke Wilson, by the way) ; "Hollywood" still doesn't want to deal with him, 'Walk The Line' also got an oscar win for Reese Witherspoon...
It should be said that during early casting of 3:10, Tom Cruise was once attatched. It seems hardly a surprise that he would inquire about the director's next project.
As for Fox putting out mindless junk...I won't defend it
(they want a remake of 'Girls Just Want To Have Fun'!) but not every picture they greenlight has to be so.