Jessica
Looks like Tom Cruise is going back to grittier action films after “Knight & Day” got mixed reviews back in 2010. “Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol” isn’t hitting theaters until December 21 (Dec. 15 in Australia), but Tom Cruise is already looking for a bunch of movies to fill up his already busy schedule.
With a number of other projects already lined up, including rocker Stacee Jaxx in Adam Shankman’s “Rock of Ages”, “One Shot” and “Horizons”, Cruise has agreed to star in the Doug Liman-directed “All You Need Is Kill” at Warner Bros. Pictures.
Variety says that although a deal with the studio isn’t officially signed, Cruise has been weighing this role for some time after continued talks with director Doug Liman.
Based on the graphic novel by Hiroshi Sakurazaka, the original story is in the vein of “Groundhog Day,” with a twist: A soldier in a war against aliens finds himself reliving his last day over and over after being killed. Through the training and battles he experiences in these time loops, he becomes a better soldier.
Here’s a description of the book:
There’s one thing worse than dying. It’s coming back to do it again and again… When the alien Gitai invade, Keiji Kiriya is just one of many raw recruits shoved into a suit of battle armor and sent out to kill. Keiji dies on the battlefield, only to find himself reborn each morning to fight and die again and again. On the 158th iteration though, he sees something different, something out of place: the female soldier known as the B*tch of War. Is the B*tch the key to Keiji’s escape, or to his final death?
The studio originally wanted someone younger for the role like Ryan Gosling or Joseph Gordon-Levitt, but the script has since been rewritten to fit Tom Cruise.
Dante Harper wrote the script with Joby Harold doing the rewrite. Sources said Cruise liked the script so much that Liman traveled to Pittsburgh, where the actor is currently shooting Paramount and Skydance’s “One Shot,” to meet with the actor about the role.
