Tom Cruise Commits Career Suicide.......Again!

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.

Mandrake headed to the big screen with Christensen & Hounsou

Comingsoon.Net reports that a movie based on Mandrake the Magician is set to go with Mimi Leder directing and Darth Wooder and Djimon Hounsou starring.

Mimi Leder (Deep Impact, The Peacemaker) will directed the film, written by Josh Oppenheimer and Thomas Dean Donnelly, JV Hart, and Ian Jeffers. The film is based on an original story by Kevin Bernhardt.
In the film, Jackson Mandrake lives life on the edge. Working as an underground magician and escapologist, his act has grown increasingly dangerous. Following a daring escape from an SUV that has been dropped out of an plane at the Burning Man Festival, he is coerced by the CIA into breaking a deep-cover agent named Xi Shing Lung out of a maximum security jail. Hypnosis, contortion, distraction and technical wizardry all come into play as Mandrake breaks the agent out from the inside within a 24-hour deadline.

But back on the outside, Mandrake learns that it was all a set-up. Xi is a CIA agent gone bad. He offers Mandrake the chance to join his crime ring. When Mandrake refuses, he's a marked man. He must escape his would-be-killers and also the real CIA who accuse him of being in league with Xi. His quest to clear his name leads him into all sorts of dangers, which he must overcome with daredevil escapes that require all his conjuring skills. And along the way, Mandrake is forced to confront his past and the girl he left behind...

My only real exposure to the character is via the old 'Flash Gordon and The Defenders of the Earth' cartoon so for me this is just a straight up action adventure film. Leder is a solid director who has won acclaim at festivals for her latest effort 'The Hurt Locker' and was the director of the quality Clooney/Kidman political espionage thriller 'The Peacemaker'.

I think the story sounds great and really lends itself to some exciting action set pieces, but with Hayden Christensen's wooden presence I'll hold my anticipation, Ive got nothing against the guy but at times he is a charisma black hole.

Sherlock Holmes Trailer!

Ive been a fan of the character since I was a kid, first introduced to him via the Basil Rathbone movies, I went on to read all the stories and own the entire Jeremy Brett TV series, that is for me to this day the definitive portrayal of the character.

That brings us to the first trailer for Guy Richie's 'Sherlock Holmes', It's certainly action packed and the sets and period feel are there, although tonally it comes off like 'Maverick', I am open to a new take and expected this to be a more bombastic and tongue in cheek affair, so on that level it works.

'Sherlock Holmes' is released on Christmas Day and you can check the trailer out below.

New Posters

A selection of new posters have shown up online from various sources.

First up via Yahoo is the poster for Robert Zemeckis Performance Capture version of 'A Christmas Carol'. Personally i think it's a bit early but there is no doubt it captures the magical feel of the classic tale.

Next up from /film we have three posters for Michael Mann's Bale vs Depp gangster flick 'Public Enemies'. These character one sheets pretty much keep in line with the main poster that just had Depp on it, although the composition of the one featuring the lovely Marion Cotillard is a bit off.

And last but not least, once again via /film, we have this rather dreadful one sheet for Rob Zombie's 'Halloween 2'.

4 Minute 'Terminator Salvation' Internet Trailer

We are not far off now, McG's Terminator future war is almost upon us and Warner Brothers has just upped the ante with an epic 4 minute trailer.

Now the question is should you watch it ? how much does it give away ? Well I'd say definitely watch it if you are a skeptic as it really gives off the epic and weighty feel of the movie more so than any previous footage available to the general audience. If you are already on board though you maybe could give it a miss, I mean there is quite a bit of new footage in here and some scenes glimpsed in the trailers are more fleshed out, but I don't think it will spoil anything for you if you choose to give in to temptation as I did.

Personally this is my most anticipated movie of the summer and with every bit of footage I see I become more impressed. In this 4 minutes we get a feel for the drama and the presence of both Connor and Marcus, as well as some truly spectacular looking action and stunning cinematography.

'Terminator Salvation' opens on May 21st and you can check out the 4 minute trailer below.

Teaser Poster for District 9

Yahoo Movies has the first teaser poster for the Peter Jackson produced, Neil Blomkamp directed 'District 9'. I think it's a fairly effective, even slightly humourous poster that will catch people's interest.

District 9 opens August 14th.

Vin Diesel is a Wheelman

I like Vin Diesel, sure he's not a great actor but he has a true screen presence and is ambitious, perhaps too ambitious. After the huge success of the original 'The Fast and The Furious' he wanted to branch out and expand, I think he made that move too quickly, he should have gotten a couple more action hits under his belt first. So now with the recent success of the 4th installment of the Furious franchise he's back in demand, lining up a role in the adaption of a videogame he starred in according to variety.

Paramount Pictures has set John Singleton to direct and Lorenzo di Bonaventura to produce The Wheelman, a live-action adaptation of the Ubisoft video game "Wheelman." The game launched last month, with Diesel as its main character and the game's producer.

Diesel will play an expert driver who comes out of retirement to protect a woman from his past.
Rich Wilkes wrote the script; the writing team of Oliver Butcher and Stephen Cornwell did a rewrite.

I like Paramount as a studio and Singleton is a solid director. this isn't going to be great but it could be a decent action flick and a hit for Diesel as it stays pretty much in the same territory as his most popular role. If he can get a few of these action hits under his belt we may finally get his long planned Hannibal biopic (The Conqueror not the leader of The A Team).

Dr. Keanu and Mr. Reeves ? Whoa!

Poor old Keanu, Ive got a soft spot for the dude, he was in two of my favourite movies growing up (Speed, The Matrix) and he does try hard, but most still see him as a block of wood with a mouth. Now news comes from The Hollywood Reporter that he is set to star in a new version of the classic 'Dr. Jekyll and Mr Hyde' for Universal.

Universal is developing a modern retelling of the classic novella "The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde," with Keanu Reeves attached to star and Justin Haythe, writer of "Revolutionary Road," penning the script.

Nicolas Winding Refn is in negotiations to direct the project, titled "Jekyll." It is being produced by Erwin Stoff and Red Wagon Entertainment's Douglas Wick and Lucy Fisher.

Robert Louis Stevenson's tale about a doctor who scientifically develops an evil self has become so pervasive in popular culture that the phrase "Jekyll and Hyde" conjures the idea of a split personality. The story has been translated to the screen and stage dozens of times, with several deviations including comedy, kids ("Jekyll and Heidi") and gender (1995's "Dr. Jekyll and Ms. Hyde"). The story has seen modern iterations as recently as 2007, when the BBC aired a miniseries with the story set in the present as Hyde ran amok in London.

Plot details for this "Jekyll" are being kept locked in the laboratory.

The jokes are going start pouring in I am sure, "Is the new version going to be about a bad actor turning into a good actor with someone else playing the good actor ?" but I am willing to at least see how this fresh take on a classic develops.

Where there's 'Smoke' there's Matthew Fox and a 'Traitor'

Almost a year ago it was announced that 'LOST' star Matthew Fox had signed on to star in an adaption of the still yet to be released Oni Press graphic novel 'Billy Smoke'. The Hollywood reporter has revealed that 'Traitor' director Jeffrey Nachmanoff has signed on to direct.

Jeffrey Nachmanoff, the writer-director behind "Traitor," is puffing "Billy Smoke," signing up to direct the adaptation of the Oni Press comic book for Warner Bros.

Matthew Fox is attached to star in the assassin thriller, with Basil Iwanyk's Thunder Road producing along with Oni's Eric Gitter, who is producing through the company's film arm, Closed on Mondays Entertainment.

The story centers on an elite hit man who is nearly killed during a botched job. He realizes that his only way to find redemption is to rid the world of all assassins.

The comic book series, written by B. Clay Moore and illustrated by Eric Kim, will be published by Oni this year.

 The plot is a solid set up for a cool action film, but at this point with very little known of the actual source material it is hard to judge if it will offer anything fresh to the hitman genre.

District 9 Teaser Trailer!

Some may recall a couple of years back Peter Jackson was going to produce a feature film version of the mega selling videogame 'Halo'. The director he had lined up was a little known South African helmer called Neil Blomkamp. Well 'Halo' fell through but undertered Jackson decided to produce an original Sci Fi film with Blomkamp as director called 'District 9'...What we have here is the rather fantastic first teaser for the film.

The film depicts a fictional world where extraterrestrials have become refugees in South Africa. Wikus (Sharlto Copley) is a Multi-National United agent who becomes infected by alien biotechnology. He must go on the run from the oppressive government into District 9, a internment camp where “non-humans” have been forced to live since landing on Earth nearly 30 years ago.

The pseudo documentary style took me by surprise and then some truly striking images hit the screen. This feels like a really fresh piece of sci fi and I think this trailer will have a similar wow factor impact as the one for 'Cloverfield' in 2007 I feel.

'District 9' opens Augut 9th and you can check the trailer below.