In the no doubt palatial lair Tom Cruise has set up for his newly-studio free Cruise/Wagner Productions company, we imagine there’s a giant revolving board, like something out of the world’s tackiest game show which, right now, the man himself is using to try and choose his next film. Currently spinning on that wheel are two studio movies and an indie.
The big boys first: Fox’s Selling Time and Warners’ The Ha-Ha both want to add some Cruise-flavoured star power to their formula. Selling Time is currently bubbling away in development with Spike Lee stirring the pot. It’s the story of a man who is trying to relive the worst day of his life – and is aiming to do that by trading chunks of his existence with strangers. Head-scratchy? Imagine the marketing team charged with selling it.
The Ha-Ha is a little more straightforward, following a mute Gulf War veteran who has to help raise a 9-year-old child. War veteran? Injury? Can you say Born On The Forth Of July?
But hold your military horses for a minute. The current hot whispers point to indie war pic Lions For Lambs, which has been written by Matthew Carnahan, who wrote the American movie adaptation of the BBC miniseries State Of Play. A political drama focused on a platoon of US troops in Afghanistan, it already has Robert Redford interested in directing and possibly acting, with Meryl Streep being sent muffin baskets by the dozen in the hope she’ll play a journalist.
Where the arrow stops – and if it will stop on any of these three, no one knows…