I wonder if Cruise will set up Volunteer Minister tents on the set and offer free stress tests to the cast and crew. And/or offer to jump someone on the casting couch.....

Tigger

Tom Cruise is Back on Duty

Posted : October 24, 2006    

 Writer : Clint Morris

Tom Cruise is set to buy his way back into bushland's good books by headlining a significantly lesser Indy project.

While he and producing partner Paula Wagner continue to hurtle tomatoes at the Paramount gates each and every night, the actor's reps are signing him up for a new war film called "Lions for Lambs", revolving around a platoon of U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan.

Now don't be thinking Cruise has gone all "Junebug" though, far from it in fact – considering Robert Redford looks set to direct the movie, and Meryl Streep is in negotiations to be the couch-jumper's co-star. We're simply talking about shaving a couple of dollars off Cruise's astronomical wage and a film that probably only costs a third of what "Mission : Impossible III" did.

In "Lambs", Cruise would play a congressman, and Streep would play a journalist.

Interestingly enough, its Warner Bros who are showing the most interest in the box-office superstar. They've had him in to talk about doing the Danny De Vito movie "I Married a Witch" (Granted, that was before he was tossed out of Paramount), and have now offered him "Lambs" and another film, "The Ha-Ha," a drama about an injured Gulf War vet who is forced to care for an orphaned child. (Can only be a matter of time before they offer him a pile of green to play Harvey Dent in "The Dark Knight", right?)

FOX have also offered Cruise a film. They're keen to talk to him about doing Spike Lee's "Selling Time", a drama about a man who sells back chunks of time in his life for a chance to relive and change the worst day of his life. Lee has met with Cruise several times and is working on a rewrite of a script by Dan McDermott. (This one might actually give Cruise a chance to show folks that he can act – not just jump around like a hyena on heat).

According to Variety, if Cruise agrees to star in one of the pics, the project would mark the actor's first vehicle since he and C/W partner Paula Wagner left Paramount in August to make an overhead and potential funding deal with Washington Redskins owner Daniel Snyder, NVR chair Dwight Schar and Six Flags prexy-CEO Mark Shapiro.

In February, Cruise was offered three films, but passed (that's the official stance anyway) on all: "3:10 to Yuma" (which now stars Russell Crowe and Christian Bale); the Andy Tennant-directed WB "Fool's Gold," which now stars Matthew McConaughey and Kate Hudson; and the Fox thriller "Two Minutes to Midnight," which is still in development at the studio.

Meantime, Katie's still at home feeding the baby and watching "Dawson's Creek" re-runs on The CW.

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there was nothing on the set of MI:III