Honestly, by now, I think we've all lost that lovin' feeling.

It wouldn't surprise me in the least to hear that folks were mulling a sequel to the 1986 romantic fighter jet flick. Not only are sequels to older films hot these days (see: Indiana Jones 4, Rocky 6, Die Hard 4), but Tom Cruise could provide a real boost to his rep if he were to revisit the character that kinda made him. Whether or not it would actually turn out to be a good movie is a whole different conversation. First off, according to those extremely reliable cats at The Sun, a script outline for Top Gun 2 is done and "movie bosses" want Cruise to star.

Apparently a source said this about the plot: "The idea is Maverick is at the Top Gun school as an instructor - and this time it is he who has to deal with a cocky new female pilot." Ooohh, original ... and spicy! It's like Karate Kid 4 meets A Really Big Paycheck for Tom Cruise! And yet ... we'd all still see it. Why are we such suckers? We currently have no idea how real this rumor is, so for the time being I wouldn't exactly break out into song and dance. Maybe it'll happen, maybe it won't.

What say you? Could this be the sequel we've subconsciously been waiting for our entire lives?

Well, I guess they don't call The New York Times the 'Paper of Record' for nothing; because not only are they the final word in journalism, but now Hollywood has come knocking for script ideas. Variety has announced the latest Times film deal, proving that the paper is going full steam into the movie business. Monika brought us an update on a Miramax deal for the film rights to the article, This Strange Thing Called Prom, but that is only the tip of the iceberg for the Old Grey Lady.

Now that the newspaper and magazine business has become what they call "economically challenged," everyone is on the hunt for some new revenue streams and Hollywood seems to be paying off. The current deals will see NYT writers share in the profits of the movie deals. But unlike the past, the newspaper will be the broker of the deals, instead of just subsidizing the articles, only to watch the writer hit a big pay day after optioning the piece.

The latest deal with Miramax marks the 15th property (that's right: 15) that the NYT has sold to studios since it first signed up with ICM. Some of the other high profile deals included a football vehicle for Jack Black, a political suspense tale that was purchased by Paramount for Tom Cruise (but I guess we all know how that particular deal probably turned out) and the recently announced J.J Abrams thriller. But the NYT is not alone in looking for bucks on the big screen; high profile papers like The Wall Street Journal have also been getting in on the act.

So is it official? Has Hollywood become so strapped for fresh ideas that they can only make it to their front doorstep for something new? Sound off below on this trend and tell us what you think.

We reported several weeks ago that Tom Cruise was all but confirmed to play the U.S. president in The 28th Amendment, a thriller that was to be directed by Phillip Noyce and co-star Denzel Washington. But now Variety has delivered a hold-your-horses on that story, saying Amendment is being set aside in favor of something else: an espionage thriller called Edwin A. Salt.

This one will star Cruise as a CIA agent accused of being a traitor. He has to go on the lam long enough to clear his name, find the real bad guy, etc.; you know the drill. The film has been in the works as a star vehicle for Cruise for some time, with Terry George and Peter Berg at various times attached to direct it. (The screenplay was written by Kurt Wimmer, author of the recent flop Street Kings.) Now it looks like the reins will go to Noyce, who previously made the action flicks Patriot Games and Clear and Present Danger.

The 28th Amendment sounds fine, and no doubt it will still get made with a different director and co-star for Denzel. But I really like the sound of Edwin A. Salt. Noyce is a very solid director, with 2002's double-whammy of Rabbit-Proof Fence and The Quiet American still looming large in my memory, and he's generally made serious, respectable films (Sliver notwithstanding). We don't know yet how Cruise's troubled Valkyrie will turn out, but Edwin A. Salt -- a heroic role guided by a smart director -- could be a wise move for his next project.

On the heels of the terrible Universal Studios fire comes word of another landmark movie location gone up in flames. San Diego's Kansas City Barbeque, which can be seen in Top Gun (watch one of its memorable scenes, dubbed in Italian, above), was been gutted by a fire that started yesterday in an open cooking pit. According to the AP article reporting on the fire, the restaurant was used for the scene in which Maverick (Tom Cruise) first picks up Charlie (Kelly McGillis) by singing "You've Lost That Lovin' Feeling," but this is incorrect (that scene was shot in Coronado, at the Officer's Club at Naval Air Station North Island). Kansas City Barbeque was used for the above scene in which Goose (Anthony Edwards) and Maverick are singing "Great Balls of Fire," as well as the final scene when "You've Lost That Lovin' Feeling" is playing on the jukebox.

The restaurant had capitalized on the fact that Top Gun was filmed there, and as you can see on its website, people referred to it as the "Top Gun Bar." You could even purchase Top Gun merchandise there and see props from the film, including the piano that Goose plays on and the jukebox from the end. Although the fire was reportedly extinguished in only 20 minutes, the restaurant has been destroyed and apparently those props are now lost forever.

Tom Cruise may be guilty of some odd public antics -- but he isn't guilty of photo fudging. Last week, we reported on Slate's little expose, where they examined a publicity photo released by United Artists. According to their graphic experts, the photo of Claus von Stauffenberg had been altered to better resemble Tom Cruise.

However, Yahoo! Movies now says Slate has been forced to retract the story. It turns out they were comparing the wrong photos -- they used one from the AP, as opposed to the Getty photograph United Artists used. Unfortunately, Slate didn't search all available archives for the photo before making their assertion.

United Artists is understandably upset over the slanderous claim. "The picture United Artists used of Colonel Stauffenberg can be found all over the Internet," said Valkyrie co-writer and producer Chris McQuarrie. He added that it would be much easier to "alter Tom Cruise" than to doctor "every available picture of Claus von Stauffenberg."

Now, with all due respect, I politely disagree with McQuarrie that the photo used by United Artists is easy to find. When this story first broke, I did my own Google search out of curiosity. The most readily available photo of von Stauffenberg is the one accompanying this post. It is also the first image Getty produces when you search their archives. The only site that produced the same photo was Spartacus Educational, and even then I wasn't sure, as the UA version seemed so much cleaner.

Two things I enjoyed about Definitely, Maybe, which came out on DVD today: the cheesy jokes about New York City in the early '90s and the fact that it is a chick flick for guys. What I mean by the latter is that the movie seems targeted to females yet it caters more to the male viewer. It's basically a male fantasy: Ryan Reynolds tells the story of how he dated three beautiful women (played by Isla Fisher, Rachel Weisz and Elizabeth Banks), one of whom he married and later divorced -- meaning he's now single again. And he also got a cute, precocious daughter (Abigail Breslin) out of the deal who becomes beneficial to him in his return to bachelorhood.

But then is it really a chick flick? I guess it is if you count romantic comedies in that grouping, though the genre has never necessarily been aligned with the term, nor vice versa. And in the age of Judd Apatow, it's more likely that any new romantic comedy is actually a guy movie. Do many men realize it's a movie for them, though? Probably not. Though chick flicks are typically movies primarily populated by women characters and/or a female protagonist (think Steel Magnolias), romance films not made by either Apatow or the Farrelly brothers may be thought of as being for the ladies, even if they feature a male lead, like Reynolds in Definitely, Maybe.

I'll admit I've always been confused about chick flicks as a term. I apparently enjoy many so-called chick flicks, including even (especially) Beaches. So, I may not be using the term correctly in this list. However, I am a guy and I know what guys want. So, I'm going to do this my way, and answer the following question: What other films may have been initially perceived by males as being made for chicks but which turned out to be more for them (us)?

Earlier today, Elisabeth shared with you a Slate story that questioned whether United Artists photoshopped a picture of Claus von Stauffenberg so that it would look more like Tom Cruise when they were promoting the casting of the actor in Bryan Singer's Valkyrie. That post is over here. Read it. Love it. Investigate! In the same Slate story, however, they talk a bit about Mission Impossible 4. There's been rumblings recently of a new Mission Impossible -- how Cruise and Paramount's Sumner Redstone wined and dined one another -- leading many to believe they may patch things up and move forward on a sequel. Wonderful. Fabulous. Let's hold hands.

Not so fast. Slate says Paramount offered Cruise the chance to produce the sequel (they have to since it's in his contract), but not star in it. Not star? Cruise? No way. And that's exactly what happened: Cruise turned down their offer. Now, says Slate, Paramount may hold off on making a new Mission Impossible until their contract with Cruise's production company expires. This will then free them up to go out, cast some hot young stud as the new Ethan Hunt (or some other random Hunt-type dude), and continue along with a fairly popular action franchise.

But should they?

When two movies with similar plots hit theaters around the same time, it usually just reveals the vapidity of Hollywood formula (as was the case when Deep Impact and Armageddon came out a few months apart). The situation changes, however, when the subject matter has far more thematic weight. Defamer's S.T. VanAirsdale points out the potential conflict brewing now that The Weinstein Company has picked up U.S. theatrical, DVD and television rights to the 2004 German film Operation Valykrie, a dramatization of the failed attempt to assassinate Adolf Hilter during World War II. Sound familiar? That's because Bryan Singer's upcoming 2009 release, Valkyrie, tells precisely the same story, with Tom Cruise in the role of would-be assassin Col. Claus Von Stauffenberg. In the German movie, the character is played by Sebastian Koch, the debonair star of The Lives of Others and Paul Verhoeven's Black Book.

In addition to the overlapping content, VanAirsdale points out another potential conflict: Koch's female co-star in Black Book, the alluring Carice van Houten, stars opposite Cruise in Valkyrie, creating the sort of meaty overlap that money can buy. Harvey Weinstein's no slouch when it comes to instigating controversy, but his company hasn't exactly had the best of luck with its recent daring titles (few turned out for Where in the World is Osama bin Laden?). Personal drama has impacted Cruise's films before, but this might be the rare case where he would have nothing to do with it.

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.