Luckily for Tom Cruise, the latest rumors surrounding him have nothing to do with Valkyrie -- for once, there's some good news for the much-maligned movie star (a round of applause, please, if you will). Yesterday, Moviehole confirmed reports that Cruise is in talks to star as the US president in Philip Noyce's DC thriller, 28th Amendment -- and according to their sources, an official announcement will be made as soon as the paperwork has been completed.

Cruise would star opposite Denzel Washington as President Ben Cahill. Tom Cruise as President? Really? Plot follows the adventures of a commander-in-chief who learns that he has no real sway at the White House after uncovering a secret organization (run by Washington) that has been the 'power behind the throne' since WWII. Unfortunately for Cahill, this group has no qualms about bumping off presidents (grassy knoll, anyone?) and as he starts to put the pieces together, he becomes the next target -- which will probably give Cruise plenty of opportunities to show off that run of his.

Remember that Mary, Queen of Scots flick in the works starring Scarlett Johansson? No, I'm not talking about The Other Boleyn Girl, but rather the other old look at UK royalty. The actress has been attached to the project for a while now, and after some cash and distribution deals at Cannes last year, the film is heading into production in the very-Scottish land of Ireland.

The Guardian reports that just like Braveheart, the production is not only filming in Ireland, but it will also use Irish army reservists again as extras on the battlefield. As it stands, the film will shoot for 6-7 weeks in Ireland (possibly including Cahir Castle), followed by 3 in Scotland -- I would assume the latter is for any particular and distinct locales that need to be used. The piece notes that this should be good for tourism spin-offs, but I hope that also includes the wonderful land of Scotland in that, since it seems to be either too expensive, or not Scottish enough. I'm still dreaming about a day when I get my butt to Robbie Burns land (although I don't know if I have the guts yet to eat the haggis).

Side note: Did you know that Ridley Scott was once attached to produce and direct the film right after Matchstick Men? I wonder what it would have been like, and who would've starred...

Variety is reporting that Phillip Noyce has signed on to direct Scarlett Johansson in Mary, Queen of Scots, a long talked-about project that will focus on the Roman Catholic Scottish queen who conspired in the Babington Plot to murder her cousin, Elizabeth I, and was eventually beheaded as a traitor in 1587. It's hard to understand what the excitement could be in telling this tale again -- we've seen it innumerable times in the past few years, right up to last year's bloated disaster Elizabeth: The Golden Age, in which the character was played by the hugely talented Samantha Morton. I also can't be the only one who thinks the casting here is bizarre in the extreme. Johansson is not a bad actress, but can she really play a French-accented monarch from the Elizabethan age? Isn't that something of a stretch? I guess we'll find out. The Variety story also says nothing about how this impacts Noyce's involvement in the Amelia Earhart biopic he's supposed to be helming.

The word from Hilary Swank's own mouth last month was that her Oscar-bait biopic of the doomed flying ace was set to begin filming in February -- so how is Noyce going to start helming Mary, Queen of Scots in April? Obviously something is screwy here. Numerous outlets have been reporting Noyce's commitment to the Earhart biopic over the last couple of months, but details about the project -- including official confirmation about basic cast and crew details -- have not been forthcoming. It certainly can't be true that Noyce is filming a major show like an Amelia Earhart biopic in the same season as Mary, so maybe his involvement was never so firm in the first place or he just dropped out of one and moved to the other. Such has been known to occur.

It looks like Scarlett Johansson is having a bit of a love affair with Europe (beyond her flirtation with Woody Allen). She's got his upcoming, yet still untitled, Spanish project and a role as a Greek gladiatrix. But her big obsession seems to be with historical Britain and France -- especially the turmoil around the crown and King Henry VII. When Kevin Kelly talked about her Delorean-traveling ways, she was attached to The Other Boleyn Girl, Mary Queen of Scots and Napoleon and Betsy. The first has gone into post-production, and the second is slowly heading forward.

News from Cannes is that Ryan Kavanaugh's Relativity Media will be giving the cash for the film and Capitol Films has nabbed the worldwide rights. The script is coming from Jimmy McGovern, frequent BAFTA television nominee, and the film will be directed by John Curran, who brought us the dysfunctional couples triangle film We Don't Live Here Anymore. Behind-the-scenes of the film sounds good and all, but I'm not so sure about Johansson. I like her, but she's the queen of disaffected acting, not necessarily the Queen of Scots. Her technique has worked for a number of her roles, but I'm not so sure that it's suitable for the Scot who became a queen at 2, a wife at 15, a widow at 17, and then spent the rest of her life in terrible familial and political turmoil, which culminated in many of her last years spent in prison before a gruesome beheading at the age of 44. Hmm.. I wonder if she'll have an accent, or just speak in the regular Johansson drawl. I imagine Mary had a pretty unique sound, growing up in France, then living in Scotland and being really multilingual. Okay, so what do you think? Is she Mary?