Having just watched Tropic Thunder last night, my head is half full with Tom Cruise's performance. I won't spoil it, but I will say that he's got more than just a brief blip in the film, and at times, the Scientology stigma that's plagued him lately just dropped away. Of course, that led me to the conclusion that he needs more comedy to get his career back on track, but while he IS starting a Food Fight, he's also looking for more spy action.

The Hollywood Reporter posts that he's in negotiations to star in the remake of the French spy thriller The Tourist. This is the feature that Bharat Nalluri signed on to direct in June, that focuses on an American tourist who becomes a pawn in a female Interpol agent's dangerous game. Basically, a money launderer changes his name and face, but this tourist looks like the guy, and is brought into the mess and set up as the bait.

Personally, I wish he'd just stick with the laughs right now, but what do you think? Would Cruise make good bait? And check out our recent What Should Cruise Do Next Poll where 47% of you currently feel he should do a comedy.

Last October, Warner Brothers picked up the rights to a book in the works by Olen Steinhauer called The Tourist, a story focusing on a spy who is falsely accused of murder and has to clear his name. And now we're getting another movie called The Tourist. However, this one is based on the French thriller, Anthony Zimmer, and Variety reports that Bharat Nalluri -- the man who helmed Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day -- will direct it. Talk about confusion -- a movie based on another movie, but shares the same name as yet another movie.

Casanova director Lasse Hallstrom was originally set to direct the film, but left the project a while ago. Now Nalluri will take on Julian Fellowes' (Gosford Park) script, which focuses on "an American tourist who finds his life in danger when a female Interpol agent uses him as a dupe to flush out an elusive criminal with whom she once had an affair." It's sort of like a Dave / Moon Over Parador film -- Zimmer is this money launderer who changes his face and voice, and a common man who looks like Zimmer is pulled into the mess as bait.

Production on the film is set to begin late this summer, or early fall.

Because there can never be enough thrillers, and there's no point waiting for the book to come out before you want to adapt it, we've got word of the next upcoming book that's already been picked up for feature treatment. The Hollywood Reporter has posted that Warner Brothers nabbed the movie rights to an upcoming book by Olen Steinhauer, a two-time Edgar Award nominee, called The Tourist. Only in "early manuscript form," it's said to be similar to John le Carre and Graham Greene, and it focuses on the typical fare of the spy who is falsely accused of murder and risks everything to clear his name.

The producers for this little project will be none other than Smoke House's George Clooney and Grant Heslov. The company has been pretty busy lately, getting projects out. There is Leatherheads, the Clooney-directed film that has just hit post, White Jazz, the James Ellroy adaptation that's being tackled by Joe Carnahan, and they're also developing an adaptation of Farragut North, a play by Beau Willimon. Considering the fact that Clooney sometimes helms these productions, I wonder if this will be a cut-and-dry production gig, or if he'll get extra-involved. Whatever the case, we've got to wait for both the book and the screenplay to be written before anything else.

Back in August, Martha had the news that Ewan McGregor and Hugh Jackman had signed to co-star in The Tourist. The story follows a man who is introduced to an underground sex club by an enigmatic "friend" who may not be who he appears to be -- are they ever? It's no surprise that things turn sour when the club may be involved in a young woman's disappearance.

Variety announced that Natasha Henstridge has joined a cast that also includes Oscar nominee Michelle Williams, Maggie Q, and Robert "Toshi" Kar Yun Chan. There is no word on Henstridge's character but since she has made a career out of being "the hot girl" it really doesn't take much imagination to guess that she will most likely spend most of the film half-clothed. Lately, Henstridge has been steadily working in TV with parts in Commander In Chief and a slew of TV movies and mini-series. Henstridge really never managed to hit the A-list when it came to movie projects and I don't think she will ever fully live down the Species franchise, but this seems like a pretty high profile drama, so it might be her shot at some better parts in the future. Considering this is the same actress who said, "yes" to Ghosts of Mars; I'm pretty sure they couldn't get any worse. The Tourist is still shooting on location in New York so it should be a while before we get a release date.

[via ComingSoon.net]

Maggie Q has been one busy gal lately, and it doesn't look like her schedule is letting up anytime soon. Already well known to audiences in Hong Kong, she played small parts in Rush Hour 2 and the forgettable Around the World in 80 Days, and she had her first big breakout role opposite Tom Cruise in Mission: Impossible III.

Q recently finished filming the ping-pong crime comedy Balls of Fury with Christopher Walken and George Lopez, has just been cast with Ewan McGregor and Hugh Jackman in the sexual thriller The Tourist. She will go directly from shooting that over the next few weeks into the terribly named Die Hard sequel, Live Free or Die Hard (this movie is going to tank if they keep that title).

We're all for actresses from foreign films breaking out into larger roles, but Hollywood frequently brings stars over from other countries, and then doesn't seem to know what to do with them. The talented Swiss actress Irene Jacob made her dubious first American film appearance in U.S. Marshals, which was her last "Hollywood" film and Audrey Tautou recently appeared in The Da Vinci Code, although her next two projects will be back home in France.

Maggie might be bitten pretty hard by the Hollywood bug, but she is currently in Pusan promoting Three Kingdoms: Resurrection of the Dragon, a period Chinese film for which she has had to learn how to ride a horse, play a pipe, and speak an ancient language. According to Q, "Just because I'm working in Hollywood these days doesn't mean that I've turned my back on Asia. I will go anywhere in the world where there is good material."

Good for her. With any luck she'll still have a career after Die Hard: Freedom Fries.


More Maggie Q on Cinematical:

Cinematical Seven: Movie Nerd Fantasy Camp -- Re-Casting Star Wars!

Odds and ends from Monday:

• Wouldn't you like to enter a sex club to find Michelle Williams waiting patiently inside? According to the New York Daily News, the actress is set to star alongside Ewan McGregor and Hugh Jackman in The Tourist, to be directed by Michael Langenegger. Pic, which starts shooting in NYC next month, revolves around an accountant (McGregor) whose lawyer (Jackman) introduces him to a secret sex club where he meets the woman of his dreams. Things look great, until she goes missing and he's implicated in a $20 million theft. Man, talk about getting screwed ... in more ways than one.
• Kelly Preston and Stuart Lafferty have signed on to play Kevin Bacon's wife and son in Death Sentence. And, as much as we wish the full title was actually Footloose 2: Death Sentence, it ain't gonna happen. In the pic, Bacon plays a man who makes it his mission to hunt down the gang who brutally attacked his family ... by dancing on them. Ha, I wish.
• Director Andrzej Bartkowiak has managed to escape the Doom surrounding his last film, and is currently in negotiations to direct the thriller Black and Blue, written by Jimmy Cummings. Pic revolves around a Boston cop who finds himself stuck in the middle of a drug war between the Irish mob and a group of young thugs. However, things become even more complicated when he discovers that some of his own family members might be involved. Dammit Grandma, I told you to stop selling all that smack!

Production Weekly just reported that Hugh Jackman and Ewan McGregor have agreed to star in The Tourist (Jackman's involvement was originally announced at Cannes), a movie that sounds a whole hell of a lot like Fight Club, except with screwing instead of fighting. Here's the summary: McGregor will play Jonathan, "an accountant disconnected from life, who is reinvigorated by his new friend Wyatt (Jackman), a powerful and charismatic lawyer who introduces Jonathan to a mysterious sex club known as The List." Personal awakening brought about by cool new club? Check. And there's more: "Shortly after meeting the woman of his dreams, Jonathan becomes the number one suspect in not only the woman's disappearance and possible murder but also a 20 million dollar theft." Major crime, and the sudden realization of the sketchiness of your new best friend? Check and check. Now, don't get me wrong -- I'm not saying I won't see it, just that it's Fight Club, 2006.

The film was written by Mark Bomback, Patrick Marber and Jason Keller, and will be directed by first-timer Marcel Langenegger; production is expect to begin in New York in October.

In addition to being arguably the most important international film festival, Cannes is also the world's largest film market, where studios try like hell to line up world-wide distribution for their projects, both the finished ones and those only in the planning stages. Summit Entertainment revealed the list of films it's taking to Cannes over the weekend and, while a few of them are familiar (particularly the Mike Newell-directed adaptation of Love in the Time of Cholera), we're hearing about most of their major offerings for the first time.

Included on the list are a pair of thrillers: The first called P2, which is about "a woman stranded in a parking garage on Christmas," and was written by the team behind the The Hills Have Eyes remake; it will be directed by Hills editor Frank Khalfoun. The second is The Tourist, which stars Hugh Jackman in a story about "identity theft, blackmail and sex" (attention, my fellow Cinematicalites: if anyone tries to claim this one for review, I will shiv you). Last but not least, however, is a hilarious romantic comedy called The Hottie and the Nottie, which centers on "an attractive woman who refuses to marry her longtime suitor until he has set up her ugly best friend with a partner." (How much do you want to bet that the "ugly" friend is going to be, like, Scarlett Johansson in glasses?) Who, you ask, is playing the hottie? Please -- something this mindless could only feature Paris Hilton. Yes, that's right: someone is actually going to let her star in a movie. If this ones gets overseas distribution, God is officially dead.