News

Tom Cruise Out, Angelina Jolie In

Tom Cruise is out and sexpot Angelina Jolie is in! Jolie is currently in negotiations to replace Cruise in the forthcoming spy thriller Edwin A. Salt. The screenplay is being redrafted, with the main character getting a sex change. Jolie will play a CIA officer who has to prove she's not a Russian spy carrying out orders to off the president. In the wake of the character's change of gender, the film will also be renamed to reflect it.

Cruise had been attached to the espionage-themed film for quite some time, even as it went through scripts and directors, before being ousted in favor of Jolie. Columbia Pictures will release the film and Phillip Noyce is now attached as a possible director.

In other Cruise news, the actor is loosely attached to star in Food Fight, a comedy about an elitist New York chef who ends up preparing meals for less discriminate palettes at a school cafeteria. Cruise would play the chef. The film is under the Working Title umbrella at Universal. Cruise hasn't done many comedies lately, even though he has enjoyed comedic success in his career, namely with 1996's Jerry Maguire, so this would be a bit of a departure role for him. The search for a director is on.

—The ARTISTdirect Staff
08.12.08