More entries and exits through the permanently revolving door that is The Tourist, which has now lost two directors and two leading men.
It started life as a project to be directed by Bharat Nalluri, starring Tom Cruise and Charlize Theron. Then Cruise walked in favour of Knight and Day, and was replaced by Sam Worthington. Nalluri left soon after, as did Theron. Theron was replaced by Angelina Jolie, and Jolie was very keen for Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck to pick up the megaphone.
But this morning it emerges that both Worthington and Donnersmarck are now off the film, over "creative differences". With whom, we wonder (not very hard)?
Variety suggests that several directors are circling the project, which still seems to be considered a plum gig, rather than the potential trainwreck its pre-production so far suggests. One name they mention in particular is Alfonso Cuaron (Y tu mama tambien, Children of Men, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban),
And to replace Worthington? None other than Johnny Depp, brought into the frame by producer Graham King, who's been working with him on The Rum Diary and Rango.
Depp paired with Jolie is a great and unusual prospect, since he's generally not part of a double-act (the story, a remake of 205's Anthony Zimmer, is about a tourist manipulated by Interpol into tracking down his femme-fatal ex, who may or may not have undertaken a life of international crime). But, we have to ask, can he fit The Tourist into a schedule that already includes Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides, The Lone Ranger and Dark Shadows?