Tom Cruise Signs Up for ‘All You Need Is Kill,’ and Don’t Worry That He’s Too Old for the Part
For all the talk about Tom Cruise's career being "over," apparently no one bothered to inform Mr. Cruise or the many studios that are very happy to employ him. Make all the Scientology and Oprah couch-jumping jokes that you want: Between "Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol," "Rock of Ages," "One Shot" (with Werner Herzog as the bad guy!) and "Horizons" (directed by "Tron Legacy" filmmaker Joseph Kosinski), the man is busy with some pretty high-profile projects. Now Variety says he's coming aboard another big film and, in a sign of just how coveted he remains, the producers are changing the character to fit the fact that Cruise is going to be 50 next year.
The project is "All You Need Is Kill," which will be directed by Doug Liman ("Mr. & Mrs. Smith"). We think the concept has some potential:
Based on the graphic novel [by Hiroshi Sakurazaka], the original story is in the vein of "Groundhog Day," with a twist: A soldier in a war against aliens finds himself reliving his last day over and over after being killed. Through the training and battles he experiences in these time loops, he becomes a better soldier.
Cruise had been considering the project for a while, and Warner Bros. was so happy to have him sign up that, despite initially seeking a younger star like Ryan Gosling or Joseph Gordon-Levitt to play the lead, they're going to rewrite the part for Cruise. (In the original graphic novel, the main character was a new recruit in the military.)
This isn't the first time this year that Cruise has attached himself to a project where he isn't exactly right for the role he's playing. For "One Shot," Cruise's character Jack Reacher (based on Lee Child's novels) is described as being well over six-feet-tall and around 250 pounds. So, naturally, Paramount had Reacher changed to fit Cruise's shorter, less bulky physique. If Cruise wasn't still seen as bankable, studios wouldn't do things like that. Yeah, Cruise's career seems to be just fine, folks.
Cruise cues 'All You Need Is Kill' [Variety]
