In honor of that impending deal Tom Cruise and Paula Wagner's United Artists might be making with the WGA, allowing them to be the first Hollywood studio to bring writers back to work since the strike began, we figured it would be best to dig up an old Tom Cruise clip to share with you on this fine, fine day. But when looking for an old school Cruise clip that best celebrates this occasion, there was really only one place to go: 1983's Risky Business. You won't see Tommy gettin' down like he does here anymore; in fact, some of his more classic (and memorable) scenes involve the guy singing along to music -- having fun -- but he stopped all that nonsense long ago. Ah, but the clips still survive. Yay for us!

Some interesting tidbits about Risky Business: In this scene, Cruise improvised the entire dance. All it said in the script was that Joel needed to "dance to rock music." So yes, those are his moves ... and his moves only. Other folks we almost saw in this role include Tom Hanks and Nicolas Cage; both of whom auditioned for the part. Timothy Hutton was offered the role, but he passed. Thankfully, because it was this movie -- and, in some ways, this scene -- that flung Tommy Cruise into the spotlight. Good luck on your deal with the WGA, Mr. Cruise, and here's hoping you'll be doing a little dance like this once all the papers are signed.

Some major major news on the strike front seems to be leaking out today, with an official announcement expected to come at some point tomorrow (according to Deadline Hollywood). Looks like United Artists (aka the movie studio run by Tom Cruise and Paula Wagner) is in the process of inking a deal with the WGA that's very similar to the one they made with David Letterman's Worldwide Pants. Said deal, if it goes through, would allow United Artists to work with writers on whatever upcoming projects they have planned, making them the first such studio allowed to do this since the strike began. Damn. Score one for Tommy Boy! It's not yet known which films will take advantage of this interim deal right off the bat, but we do know that Oliver Stone's Pinkville was recently postponed due to problems with the script. Chances are, with the cast for that flick already in place, it will be one of the first delayed productions to be back in business. Of course, this is all subject to the deal actually going through.

On the other hand, United Artists could get right to work on a literary property they just optioned for seven figures. While all this interim agreement talk continues, The Hollywood Reporter tells us UA has optioned the film rights to Ranger's Apprentice, a fantasy series written by Australian author John Flanagan. According to HR, it "follows the adventures of an orphan boy named Will who becomes an apprentice ranger and fights to keep the mythical kingdom of Araluen safe from invaders, traitors and other dangers with the help of his master Halt." Yup, that sounds like just about every fantasy series being optioned these days, but what's even more interesting is that writer-director Paul Haggis was in talks to adapt and direct at one point before the strike happened and halted those discussions. Haggis doing big-budget fantasy? Bit of a stretch if you ask me -- what do you think?

Lionsgate recently invited Cinematical out to the set of The Eye, a new supernatural thriller starring Jessica Alba, Alessandro Nivola, and Parker Posey, and directed by David Moreau and Xavier Palud. They were shooting in downtown Los Angeles and ironically, the weather was completely sunny and beautiful all weekend but they had to make it look like a nasty gray downpour was happening. Come Monday morning, it was completely gray and rainy for real throughout Los Angeles, just the way the filmmakers would have wanted it. The sheer amount of work involved just to make it look like it is raining when it's not (they don't just crank the knob on a hose) is pretty impressive, and it makes you realize how much work has to go into something so simple.

We watched them coordinate massive amounts of water, corral extras, block actors and meticulously plan out camera shots. There was a massive amount of work going into this, because it's the first time we see Allison (Alba) in the film. Besides the pouring rain, she has to juggle a violin, her bag, a cane, an umbrella, and pull it off like someone who has been doing it for years. Oh yeah, and she's also blind. All of this information in a single shot helps not only establish the look and feel of the film, but it tells you loads about Alba's character without a single line of dialogue.

The Eye is a remake of the Chinese film Gin Gwai, directed by the Pang Brothers, about a young woman who has been blind for most of her life, then has a corneal transplant that restores her vision. However, she has difficulty dealing with the transition, and begins to hallucinate. Her new vision not only allows her to see what we see, but she can peep into the 'spirit realms' as well. She sets out to discover the mystery behind her vision, and to learn more about the donor of her corneas. The original is more about the mystery of it all than about spooky ghosts and ghouls flying around, and hopefully this remake will stay true to that. We're all starting to feel a bit burnt out on the Japanese horror remakes.

Tom Cruise has been alienating a lot of people lately, so what better way to get on their good side than by trying to kill Hitler? Production begins this summer on an untitled World War II thriller, starring Cruise and directed by Bryan Singer. The film will be based on actual events, and is said to be about German generals who hatch a scheme to assassinate Hitler at the height of WWII. Cruise and Paula Wagner (who looks like she's blowing up a building with her mind in her imdb photo), recently took over the re-launched United Artists, and they've got a pretty smart strategy for turning the studio around: Have Cruise star in everything!

This is the second film "The New UA" has announced that Cruise will appear in, the other being Lions for Lambs, in which he stars with Meryl Streep and Robert Redford, who will also direct. Wagner says "After reading the script, Tom and I knew immediately that this was a film we had to make. As an added bonus, because of Bryan Singer's involvement and Tom's admiration for him as a filmmaker, as well as the excellence of the script, the project attracted Tom as an actor. I cannot think of a more perfect combination of creative elements for our second production." All that is known about what part Cruise will be playing is that it is a "central role." After Cruise's brogue in Far and Away, here's hoping he's not playing a German. Accents don't seem to be a strong suit of his.

Singer is said to have just enough time to fit this in before beginning production on the sequel to Superman Returns (The Return of Superman Returns?), which may or may not happen anyway. Gotta say, this movie sounds like it could be very cool, and I for one am thrilled to see Singer getting away from superheroes. And great news for you Keyser Soze fans, the thriller will be Singer's reunion with Usual Suspects writer Christopher McQuarrie, who wrote the script with Nathan Alexander.

Before he takes on a sequel to Superman Returns (currently titled Superman: The Man of Steel), Bryan Singer has decided to go back to his roots and helm a multi-character film that's similar to his 1995 hit The Usual Suspects. Teaming up once again with Suspects writer Chris McQuarrie, pic will be set during WWII and begins production this summer. Though he has an overall deal at Warner Bros. (where he's developing the Supes sequel, as well as a few other films), Singer and McQuarrie decided to put their faith in Tom Cruise and Paula Wagner's United Artists who will make this their second film since leaving Paramount. Currently, they're in production on the smells-like-Oscar project Lions for Lambs, which stars Tom Cruise, Meryl Streep and Robert Redford (who is also directing).

But what does this mean for the Superman sequel? According to Variety, this new film "will delay Warner Bros.' hope of mounting a sequel to Superman Returns in the near future." Last we heard, the sequel was being planned for a 2009 release, most likely during the summer. Will Singer have enough time to produce both films, or will The Man of Steel find himself shoved off till 2010? Regardless, I'm happy to see Singer leave the comic book universe for a little while; The Usual Suspects is a fantastic film, and if he and McQuarrie can tap back into some of that, I welcome it with open arms. What do you folks think: Is Singer making a good choice here? Or should he be concentrating solely on a Superman Returns sequel?

Some folks manage to land big acting gigs after studying the craft for years and acting in no-budget indie films, while suffering through an endless amount of part time jobs. Others, well, just happened to be working at the right gift shop at the right time. Yes, that's how Derek Luke was discovered -- he was working at a gift shop on the Sony lot when someone said, "Ya know that guy who sells Sony t-shirts? Yeah, how about we cast him as the lead in Antwone Fisher?"

Needless to say, Luke is hot right now -- he's starred in Catch a Fire, Friday Night Lights, Biker Boyz and Glory Road, just wrapped filming on Definitely, Maybe and, according to Variety, landed a role in the Robert Redford-directed Lions for Lambs starring Tom Cruise, Meryl Streep, Michael Pena and Redford. Luke will play one of two soldiers who strays from his platoon and winds up exactly where you don't want to be while stationed in Afghanistan. From there, storylines intersect and Oscar nominations are handed out.

Penned by Matthew Michael Carnahan (brother to director Joe Carnahan and writer behind The Kingdom), Lambs is quite the departure for Redford, who has yet to helm his own gritty, politically-charged film set in the Middle East. It also marks the first film for Cruise and producing partner Paula Wagner since they were booted from Paramount and landed at United Artists.

In late October (the 24th to be exact) I told you about Tom Cruise's latest dilemma between which new project, and multi-million dollar paycheck, he would choose for his next film. To refresh, his choices were a drama called The Ha Ha for Warner Bros., the horror-thriller Selling Time for director Spike Lee and Lions for Lambs, directed by and co-starring Robert Redford. Being the smart guy I am, I thought Cruise should join Spike Lee's film and make that his next project. They seemed like a good fit and I was looking forward to the kind of film a Cruise/Lee partnership would produce.

Of course, he decided to go a different way. According to Variety, Cruise has picked Robert Redford's Lions for Lambs to be his next starring vehicle. Not only that, but the pic will be the first film to go into production for United Artists since Cruise and producing partner Paula Wagner took over the studio from MGM a few short weeks ago. Lions for Lambs, scripted by Mathew Carnahan, features three interconnecting stories about a congressman (played by Cruise) who's pursued by a reporter (played by Meryl Streep), an idealistic professor (played by Redford) who attempts to inspire a wealthy student to action and a pair of American soldiers wounded in the Gulf war, one of them a former student of Redford's.

In the end, Lions for Lambs might actually be the best choice for Cruise to take on as his next film. It's been quite awhile since he was in an "important" film with a message like The Firm, A Few Good Men or Born on the Fourth of July. It will probably do him good to get back to his roots and to a time when people thought he actually had some acting talent instead of thinking of him as some pro-Scientology zealot who jumps up and down on Oprah's furniture. Plus, with UA financing the pic, the new Cruise/Wagner mini-studio could already have its first film ready to hit theaters next year. Maybe this Tom Cruise guy is smarter than I thought? At the moment, there's no other casting news to report, but production is scheduled to begin early next year.

Over at her Risky Biz Blog, Anne Thompson has a piece up on the big scoop around United Artists. United Artists has been a studio in limbo ever since Sony acquired both MGM and UA in April of last year. No one was sure if Sony would simply absorb the other company, or whether they would continue to use their brand and logo as a distribution arm. Today the mystery is over, with MGM announcing today that Tom Cruise and his partner Paula Wagner will help relaunch the new United Artists as partner-operators. This finally lands Cruise at a new studio, after being released by Paramount following the disappointing box office take for M:I3, and displeasure over Tom's couch-jumping antics. The new deal gives Cruise and Wagner the ability to greenlight their own projects, and will serve as a pipeline for them to distribute their own content. What remains unclear is how this newly announced deal will affect the new Cruise/Wagner production company that was cobbled together by investors once Tom left Paramount.

Since 1919 United Artists has had a storied past since inception and creation by four of the film world's biggest stars at the time: Douglas Fairbanks, Charlie Chaplin, Mary Pickford and director D.W. Griffith. It enjoyed both success and failures in the intervening years, giving birth to such franchises as the Rocky, James Bond, and Pink Panther films as part of its highs, and being the studio behind the Heaven's Gate debacle as part of the lows, which left it essentially bankrupt in 1980. The press release lauds Cruise as, "one of the most successful, critically acclaimed and sought after movie stars in the world. Cruise's films have resulted in worldwide box office totals of approximately US$6 billion and his last two films, War of the Worlds and Mission: Impossible III have grossed nearly US$1 billion worldwide." United Artists is hoping that both Cruise name and star power will help bring them home some of that bling.

Eight years after forming Section Eight to make films for Warner Bros. as cheaply as possible in exchange for minimal creative interference, George Clooney and Steven Soderbergh have closed the door on Section Eight for good. Their last picture under the banner will probably be the sequel Ocean's Thirteen, to be released next summer.

Vanity deals in Hollywood used to be handed out by Hollywood to everyone with a SAG card it seemed. However, once the belt-tightening of spiraling production costs and sagging box office receipts began to hit in the mid-90s, those deals evaporated faster than swag bags around Lindsay Lohan. High profile deals have been hitting skids lately, with Tom Cruise's Cruise/Wagner Productions being let go by Paramount, and Section 8 shuttering this month. Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston's own Plan B Entertainment seems to be surviving, after Aniston left the company and Pitt (the more bankable of the two) signed a new deal with Paramount, no surprise since they formed the company with Brad Grey, the current president of the studio.

Ironically, for a company that set out to make films as cheaply as possible in exchange for minimal creative interference, their only real financial successes were the very expensive (and highly profitable) Oceans's Eleven series, which has spawned two sequels and grossed over $800 million worldwide. Although they enjoyed plenty of critical success with Syriana and Good Night and Good Luck, they did not turn large profits for the studios, and failed to break into television despite repeated attempts.

Clooney and Soderbergh are both extremely talented, with Clooney being just as versatile behind the camera (see his own Confessions of a Dangerous Mind), and will have no problem continuing being successful. However, this was one of the most unique combinations of film talent in recent years, and I for one would have liked to see them continuing to put out the types movies that they were slowly but surely becoming known for; smart films that made you think well after you'd left the theater.

Related stories:

Clooney and Soderbergh: The Demise of a Vanity Shingle?

Clooney, Soderbergh Break-Up Official: Aug. 1

The Boston Herald has an interesting piece up speculating on whether Paramount execs had planned to end their spendy relationship with Cruise and his production partner, Paula Wagner, to make room for Steven Spielberg since Paramount's acquisition of Dreamworks SKG nine months ago. Brett Arends, writing for the Herald, points out that in a conversation with Par stockholders and Wall Street analysts last December, Viacom chair Sumner Redstone and other execs noted that the acquisition of Dreamworks meant that Dreamworks (and, presumably Spielberg) would be taking over 4-6 slots out of the 14-16 films Paramount puts out per year. Tom Feston, chief operating officer at the time, had emphasized that Dreamworks would be taking slots in Par's existing slate -- which, as Arends notes in his piece via a quote from a Wall Street analyst, indicated that Paramount had already decided then that they would have to get rid of some production relationships to make room.

It's an interesting take on the much ballyhooed C/W-Paramount split, especially in light of Spielberg saying that he was "shocked" to learn of Cruise's departure. Given that Cruise reportedly will make more off of Mission: Impossible: 3 than the prodco, though, one has wonder if the split was inevitable anyhow, regardless of Redstone's talk about Cruise's off-screen antics being to blame, and if the Dreamworks buy just accelerated the process. It will be interesting to see what Cruise and Wagner do on their own, and who ends up winning the long-term box office battle. ...