Adhering to his label of “action” star, Tom Cruise is looking to follow December’s Valkyrie and his upcoming role in the U.S. remake (The Tourist) of Jerome Salle‘s Anthony Zimmer with a spy vs. spy type of tale that would in essence bring United Artists back into MGM’s fold. Variety announced that Cruise is currently in talks to star opposite Denzel Washington — the signing would mean that Naked Lunch, Crash and Spider director David Cronenberg would not be paired again with Viggo Mortensen on what apparently seems to be a bigger ticket price project. I had thought that material that features the old Soviet Union and KGB and ends up being directed by the Candian filmmaker would naturally include Mortensen.
Based on the novel by Robert Ludlum, and written by Michael Brandt and Derek Haas, this is set during the Cold War, the book pairs rival spies, one from the CIA (Washington) and the other from the KGB, who bury the hatchet for the moment because only they possess the smarts and killing abilities to go up against an international circle of killers called the Matarese. Cruise who play the Russian spy. The film is expected to go into production later this year and be released in 2010.
