Theron Tapped for 'Tourist' with Tom Cruise

A team-up that could excite audiences...

By: Brad Brevet
Published: Tuesday, November 4th 2008 at 6:37 PM

I just finished watching a double dose of the unrated version of Tropic Thunder, once all on its own and a second time around with the Ben Stiller, Robert Downey Jr. and Jack Black audio commentary and can't get enough of this film and Tom Cruise in it. I have no idea what his personal image is with audiences right now, but for me I was never down on the man. I hope Valkyrie can live up to its trailers and it sounds like his next film, The Tourist, the Bharat Nalluri-directed remake of the 2005 French thriller Anthony Zimmer is shaping up nicely as Charlize Theron is now in negotiations to join the cast.

The flick will feature Theron as a female Interpol agent who uses an American tourist in an attempt to flush out an elusive criminal with whom she once had an affair. Obviously, Cruise is the tourist.

Production is expected to begin by March as Valkyrie co-scripter Christopher McQuarrie polishes the script originally penned by Julian Fellowes (Gosford Park). McQuarrie also penned Bryan Singer's The Usual Suspects.

I will assume based on Cruise's involvement this film will land at United Artists, but as it stands right now there is no official word.

Cruise recently dropped off the Edwin A. Salt feature after Angelina Jolie stepped into his role as it obviously had a gender switch. He is rumored for a comedy called Food Fight and is also circling a comicbook flick called Sleeper with Sam Raimi, a film that centers on an operative whose fusion with an alien artifact makes him impervious to pain and allows him to pass it on to others through skin contact. He is placed undercover in a villainous organization by an intelligence agency and falls for a member of the group, named Miss Misery.

Theron will next be seen in The Road and The Burning Plain, although both currently sit without release dates.