Doctor Gonzo

Originally set as a summer release, then pushed back to the fall, now it looks like a 2009 release...

Richard Brooks, Arts Editor, The Sunday Times

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 £45m, 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.

Neeb

Covered this two months ago.

Has it been pushed back further than Feb 2009?

toddly6666

That sucks for Carice Van Houten as well

RichC2

She's in this? Well then, now I'm interested.

FiveO

I bought Black Book as a blind buy and was very impressed at her performance and beauty.

I'll still see it...but as RichC2 said...now I'm more interested

toddly6666

It sucks because this will only delay Carice's possible stardom in Hollywood. She's one of Holland's best current English-speaking actresses - it would be a shame that she won't get hyped up again til 2009, when hopefully people/media won't forget about her in Black Book...

rehmus

watching tom cruise free fall is the most fun thing since michael jackson was doing it.

starseed1981

So very very very true. Idiot destroyed his career.

DVD Josh

I heard that copies of Chinese Democracy will include movie cash for Valkyrie.

Groucho

"Valkyrie needs food...badly!"

"Valkyrie is about to die!"

Ronnie Dobbs

This movie seems like it will be more of Apt Pupil than X-Men or Usual Suspects in the career of Bryan Singer. It just seems horribly miscast.

Artman

I think the mistake has been marketing it as a Tom Cruise movie (see the trailer for example) rather than an ensemble drama along the lines of Usual Suspects, Munich, etc. That way the movie looks better and Cruise doesn't put himself on the line... this kind of movie even if done really well wouldn't be a box office hit anyways.

GreenVulture

Where did she say she wants to be a big star in the US?

Peep

Put a fork in it. This movie is done.

sauce07

Why does this movie still interest me? It seems like I may be all alone in the theater when this opens according to this thread.

Jericho

Bryan Singer (good director)
Christopher McQuarrie (won Oscar for writing)
Good Cast (Tom Wilkinson, Terence Stamp, Kenneth Branagh, Bill Nighy among others)

You'd think this would be a decent movie.

BJacks

As someone who loves WWII movies, especially those that take place in Berlin like Downfall and The Bunker, I'm still really looking forward to this. Cruise may be nutty but I dig his work.

sauce07

Exactly. The talent behind this movie is A+. The Usual Suspects was my favorite movie for 1/2 my life. Tom Wilkinson is one of my fav. actors.

And you know what i'm gonna say it, Tom Cruise is a good actor. I don't care what he does on Oprah, or what he says on the Today show, the man was in Risky Business and Top Gun. He always entertains me, i've never walked away from a TC movie feeling like I didn't get my money worth.

I can go see a Woody Allen movie and block out the fact that he is sleeping with the adopted daughter of his ex-wife. I can watch Roman Polanski without thinkng about him raping a 13 year old. How about O.J.? The Naked Gun is still funny. I think I can block out TC's antics from the last few years.

PopcornTreeCt

I don't mind Tom Cruise I think he's a good actor that mostly overacts but I still like him. I don't know about him playing a one eyed German though. I don't think Bryan Singer is much of a director though. Yeah, he didn't fuck up The Usual Suspects and X-Men was pretty good Superman Returns was pretty mild. I don't think anyone was worried about this film until the studio pushed back the release date. It shows a lack of confidence in the film and that must be pretty bad when they release crap week after week.

JumpCutz

jeffkjoe

I have a bad feeling about this.

fmian

Man you know what, I just don't think Singers a good director. I think he just got lucky with Usual Suspects (watch the DVD extras). Haven't seen Apt Pupil but it seems like everything after that just progressively got worse.
I keep expecting more punch from his movies, not action, but just substance.

Hopefully Valkyrie will show us something better as he's reteamed with McQuarrie for the first time since Suspects.

Jericho

What about the X-Men movies? It seems everyone's down on Singer after Superman Returns, but ignoring that, is there a movie he made that's bad? I don't even think Superman Returns is bad. It's just that it's certainly one movie people pick on that he did. So let's remove that from discussion and look at his other 4.

RichC2

He doesn't have a particularly long filmography:

# Football Wives (2007) (TV)
# Superman Returns (2006)
# "House M.D." (3 episodes, 2004)
... aka House (USA: short title)
- Occam's Razor (2004) TV episode
- Pilot (2004) TV episode
- Unaired Pilot (????) TV episode
# X2 (2003)
# X-Men (2000)
# Apt Pupil (1998)
# The Usual Suspects (1995)

Haven't seen Football Wives (?? US Version of Footballers Wives?) but have liked everything else (except for, oddly enough, The Usual Suspects.)

fmian

The X-Men movies were effective popcorn movies at best. Like anything Bay would make.
I dunno, I just really want to see Singer evolve like Fincher, Rodriguez, Jackson, and Boyle have done. Their film careers all started the same year (besides Jackson) and they all went from leaps to bounds. Singer seems like he's bitten off more than he can chew with going to big budget hollywood flicks strait away, and put out far less quality movies than the other directors have. I really wanted to see more 'films' from him. But like I said, maybe Valkyrie will change that.