valkyrie

June 3, 2008
Tom Cruise Dons His Eye Patch and Starts Shooting Again

Tom Cruise is going back to work. No, not on a new film: He's going to shoot the three final scenes on "Valkyrie," the movie that began production one year ago in Germany.

Much has been made of Cruise's decision to make this film. Some gurus claim that film-goers don't want to see Tom Terrific with an eye patch playing a Nazi, albeit one who tries to assassinate Hitler. No, Tom does not speak with a faux German accent in the movie, but there are random other accents around, including British.

Although the film has yet to be completed, several people I trust have seen "Valkyrie" and testify that it's a superb thriller. "Bryan Singer is back in form," says one source, referring to the "Valkyrie" director whose last film was "Superman Returns."

Cruise will be shooting three scenes in North Africa within the next three weeks. In one, his character, Col. Claus Von Stauffenberg, is badly injured but survives, a key moment in the film's first act.

Valkyrie has another mark against it -- two changes in its release date. The film is now scheduled for release Feb. 13. That could be a triple advantage, or whammy. It's Friday the 13th, Valentines Day and Presidents' Day weekend. That's Cruise's chosen release date through his United Artist label, and there's no way he's changing it again.

May 12, 2008
By Jack Malvern

Tom Cruise's career as a Hollywood mogul has suffered a further blow as his forthcoming film about the 1944 plot to assassinate Hitler has been delayed for a second time.

Valkyrie, starring Cruise as the German mastermind of the conspiracy, will not be released until February 2009, nearly eight months after it was scheduled to appear. The delay means that the film will no longer be in prime position for consideration in the awards season early next year, but it may make more money. United Artists (UA), which was revitalised in 2006 when Cruise and Paula Wagner, his business partner, bought a stake, postponed the release to allow Bryan Singer, its director, more time to shoot three scenes. The release was previously pushed back from June to October because Singer had not shot a battle scene that explained how Claus von Stauffenberg, Cruise's character, lost a hand and an eye in North Africa.
Valkyrieis critical for UA after Lions for Lambs flopped despite the involvement of Cruise, Robert Redford and Meryl Streep.

Clark Woods, president of domestic distribution for the distributor, said that the delay was motivated by a lack of competition for cinemagoers on February 13. "When an opening became available for President's Day Weekend, we seized the opportunity. Moving into a big holiday weekend is the right move."
Some commentators have already remarked that the film is unlikely to win any awards. Erik Davis, a contributor to Cinematical, a weblog, said: "Everyone is trashing Tom Cruise for his nonexistent German accent and silly eyepatch."

May 11, 2008
Tom Cruise's Adolf Hitler film put back into Hollywood bunker

Richard Brooks, Arts Editor

The fortunes of Hollywood actor Tom Cruise have suffered a blow with the news that his next big film has been postponed until 2009.

The release of Valkyrie, which tells the story of the 1944 assassination plot against Hitler, was first postponed from this summer to the autumn and is now not expected to appear until next year.

"We were originally expecting the film to be released in June," said a senior executive at one of Britain's leading cinema chains. "I know there have been all sorts of problems with this production and we will not be screening it at all this year."

The film is not only a blow to Cruise as an actor but in his more recent incarnation as a movie mogul at United Artists (UA), the studio which made the film.

One critic in Hollywood has declared "Valkyrie is dead", with another arguing that the film's problems could also wreck the revival of UA.

Cruise, whose earlier career saw hit after hit with Top Gun, Rain Man and Jerry Maguire, is a stakeholder in UA, which was originally founded by Charlie Chaplin and other stars. It has since passed through several different owners until Cruise relaunched it as a major studio in 2006.

Cruise, who is married to the actress Katie Holmes, has a minority stake with his business partner Paula Wagner, but the pair have almost total control over which films are made.

UA's first major film, Lions for Lambs, a story about the Iraq war with Cruise and Meryl Streep starring and Robert Redford directing, flopped.

Valkyrie has been directed by Bryan Singer, who is best known for The Usual Suspects and X-Men. The new film, which was mostly shot last year at a cost of Ł45m, has so far left test audiences unimpressed.

The quality of Cruise's German accent was widely commented on. The film has also had to have reshoots after footage was damaged in labs. Cruise plays the German officer Claus von Stauffenberg, who led the plot. Other German parts are played by British actors, including Bill Nighy and Kenneth Branagh.

A flop would not be good news either for Branagh, who directed three films last year - The Magic Flute, As You Like It and Sleuth - all of which had mixed reviews.
However, Branagh has usually fared better as an actor. He won awards for the film Conspiracy in 2001, where he played the Nazi bureaucrat Reinhard Heydrich, who chaired the conference during the second world war at which the policy of exterminating Jews was decided upon.

Roger Friedman, who has a widely read film blog and a column on foxnews.com, recently advised Cruise, who was formerly married to Nicole Kidman, to "do another Jerry Maguire-like comedy" to get his acting career back on track.

http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/film/article3908364.ece