Hitler Assassination Attempt Kills Tom Cruise Instead
When trying to revive one’s popularity, it’s best to play a Nazi.
Times Online:
The fortunes of Hollywood actor Tom Cruise have suffered a blow with the news that his next big film has been postponed until 2009.
The release of Valkyrie, which tells the story of the 1944 assassination plot against Hitler, was first postponed from this summer to the autumn and is now not expected to appear until next year.
“We were originally expecting the film to be released in June,” said a senior executive at one of Britain’s leading cinema chains.
“I know there have been all sorts of problems with this production and we will not be screening it at all this year.”
The film is not only a blow to Cruise as an actor but in his more recent incarnation as a movie mogul at United Artists (UA), the studio which made the film.
One critic in Hollywood has declared “Valkyrie is dead”, with another arguing that the film’s problems could also wreck the revival of UA.
Cruise, whose earlier career saw hit after hit with Top Gun, Rain Man and Jerry Maguire, is a stakeholder in UA, which was originally founded by Charlie Chaplin and other stars.
It has since passed through several different owners until Cruise relaunched it as a major studio in 2006.
Cruise, who is married to the actress Katie Holmes, has a minority stake with his business partner Paula Wagner, but the pair have almost total control over which films are made.
UA’s first major film, Lions for Lambs, a story about the Iraq war with Cruise and Meryl Streep starring and Robert Redford directing, flopped.
Valkyrie has been directed by Bryan Singer, who is best known for The Usual Suspects and X-Men. The new film, which was mostly shot last year at a cost of £45m, has so far left test audiences unimpressed.
The quality of Cruise’s German accent was widely commented on. The film has also had to have reshoots after footage was damaged in labs.
Cruise plays the German officer Claus von Stauffenberg, who led the plot. Other German parts are played by British actors, including Bill Nighy and Kenneth Branagh.
A flop would not be good news either for Branagh, who directed three films last year – The Magic Flute, As You Like It and Sleuth – all of which had mixed reviews.
However, Branagh has usually fared better as an actor. He won awards for the film Conspiracy in 2001, where he played the Nazi bureaucrat Reinhard Heydrich, who chaired the conference during the second world war at which the policy of exterminating Jews was decided upon.
Roger Friedman, who has a widely read film blog and a column on foxnews.com, recently advised Cruise, who was formerly married to Nicole Kidman, to “do another Jerry Maguire-like comedy” to get his acting career back on track.
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His hat is crooked. Verboten.
May 12th, 2008 at 6:30 pmPat, when a film gets a stink on it like this, is there any hope for it, success wise?
May 12th, 2008 at 6:32 pmOne word …
Waterworld
May 12th, 2008 at 6:40 pmYou know … I’ll admit it (as if you all haven’t already figured it out) … I’m a sucker for a guy in uniform.
Even the bloody Soviets looked good.
But I have always been repulsed by the damn German/Nazi uniform (and with good reason).
I think they were very successful in completely flushing themselves from the pedestal that men in uniform stand on.
Hell, even the Chi-Coms seem to rank higher.
May 12th, 2008 at 6:48 pm“Hitler Assassination Attempt Kills Tom Cruise Instead”
I love that headline..hilarious! I guess a few of these
are in order!
May 12th, 2008 at 6:50 pmIt’s not the stink that kills it so much, but the simple fact that if there’s a stink this big, the movie is almost certainly shitty.
May 12th, 2008 at 7:03 pm
May 12th, 2008 at 7:11 pmTom outta’ go take L. Ron Hubbard’s ol’ Jag for a cruise & give films a long break… & BTW that footage was not damaged in the labs. It was insured & the dailies sucked so some homie in the lab threw some sand in the bath. & STILL after re-shoots it still sux?!
May 12th, 2008 at 7:18 pmYet another Hollywood Nazi movie I won’t be seeing.
Stalin & his clique did far more damage than the Nazis could ever dream of.
That’s the point. It’s a diversionary tactic to sway peoples attention away from the truth & inevitable failure of socialism.
RAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!! Look everybody!! It’s a NAZZZIIII!!
Joseph Stalin? Who the fuck is Joseph Stalin???
May 12th, 2008 at 8:59 pm
May 12th, 2008 at 9:10 pmHaha yea Pat, good headline.
May 13th, 2008 at 1:24 amLeatherneck
Right on man!!!
Been saying that for years.
May 13th, 2008 at 5:47 amRegardless what you think of Hitler.
Stauffenberg was a fuckin rat.
May 13th, 2008 at 5:50 amLeatherneck has a point.
The nazis and the soviets had a treaty before WWII. They were buddies. “nazi” after all, is a contraction of the German words for National Socialism. But then Hitler double crossed them, invaded Poland, and the soviet propaganda, disinformation, and other organs of the state turned on a dime, and portrayed the nazis as evil RIGHT wingers, and that con job continues to this day.
May 13th, 2008 at 6:52 amHold on Bill.
Hitler attacked Poland to gain back Prussian land lost after WW1. Also German minorities in Poland werre being brutalized. It would be no different than Americans attacking a country that was harming US citizens. Besides
The Soviets invaded the OTHER half of Poland yet no one declared war on them.
Also Hitler attacked because the Soviets were going to attack later in 1941. The Communists wanted total control of Europe.
May 13th, 2008 at 7:04 amI may hold an unpopular opinion, but I think the Germans had the best tailors. Their uniforms were the shit! They looked badass and stylish.
They were pricks, but well bespoke.
May 13th, 2008 at 8:01 amHugo Boss, the famous German design house, made many of the SS Uniforms.
August 9th, 2008 at 9:41 am