Cruise drafted for WWII drama

Cruise drafted for WWII drama [E! Online]

Tom Cruise is ready to fight the good fight.

The A-lister and newly minted Hollywood mogul has signed on to star in an untitled World War II thriller revolving around a real-life assassination attempt on infamous Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler.

Bryan Singer (Superman Returns) will direct.

United Artists—the Sony-owned studio which Cruise and his producing partner Paula Wagner recently took over after the end of their production deal with Viacom—initially acquired the Christopher McQuarrie and Nathan Alexander-penned project last week for its new production slate, but the Hollywood hunk was never expected to star.

That is, until he sat down with Singer, who was able to carve out time to do the movie before filming another sequel featuring the Man of Steel for Warner Bros.

Per the trades, the blockbuster filmmaker persuaded Cruise to play a pivotal character in the war drama, which is based on an actual conspiracy plot hatched by German generals who believed Hitler needed to die in order to make peace with the Allies and stave off a Soviet invasion. The coup was a failure, however, and the Gestapo rounded up anyone even faintly involved and executed many of them.

"After reading the script, Tom and I knew immediately that this was a film that we had to make," Wagner said in a statement. "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."

The Hitler film is the second movie United Artists has greenlit for production since the couch-jumping thespian and his longtime partner agreed to revive the long-dormant label last fall, with the goal of making four to six pictures a year. The first project, Lions for Lambs, teams Cruise with Robert Redford and Meryl Streep in a drama dealing with the war in Afghanistan and is set for release on Nov. 9.

As for Singer, the WWII-era flick reunites him with McQuarrie, the scribe who wrote the helmer's critically acclaimed 1995 caper, The Usual Suspects, as well as his breakthrough 1993 debut, Public Access. The duo will co-produce, along with Alexander.

Lensing is slated to begin this summer on the as-yet untitled assassination thriller, which United Artists' sister company, MGM is targeting for a 2008 release.

In other Cruise news, Variety reports that the actor-producer and Wagner are also in talks with Francis Ford Coppola about acquiring Youth Without Youth, his first film since 1997's The Rainmaker.

The Godfather mastermind, who launched Cruise to stardom by casting him in 1983's The Outsiders, produced, adapted and directed the 1930s-era romantic thriller, which is based on the 1976 novel by Romanian historian Mircea Eliade. It headlines Tim Roth as a 70-year-old man who sees his years decrease and his brilliance increase after he is struck by lightning. Bruno Ganz and Alexandra Maria Lara co-star while Matt Damon appears briefly in a cameo.

Coppola recently screened the $5 million flick for pal George Lucas, among others, and is currently seeking a distributor for what one studio exec likened to an "arty Raiders of the Lost Ark."