Cruise Waffles: Trade Roughage 10/22/07

By Karina Longworth posted 11 months ago

Lions For Lambs is, according to Dade Hayes, a “remarkably strident political work that takes dead aim at the Bush White House and assails post-9/11 foreign policy.” It’s also the first project to see release from the Tom Cruise-controlled United Artists, and it wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say that Cruise’s comeback is riding on its success. And yet, it seems as though Cruise the producer hasn’t given Cruise the star (who plays a right-wing senator in Lambs) talking points on how to package his own political views in relation to the film.
Ryan Gosling gained 20 pounds and grew a beard for the job, and yet, a day before shooting was to begin, he was fired from Peter Jackson’s The Lovely Bones and replaced with Mark Wahlberg. Who wants to put money on what “creative differences” actually means in this case?
Graphic novel adaptation 30 Days of Night barely squeaked past Why Did I Get Married? at the box office this weekend, earning $16 million to Tyler Perry’s $12 million. Michael Clayton, which has already been written off as a failure by some Clooney haters, held on to the fourth place slot for the second week in a row. Star-studded Oscar bait continued to bomb pretty hard: Rendition opened wide in ninth place, and Reservation Road managed just $2,630 per screen in limited release.