Tom Cruise as Nazi: Trouble Ahead

Michael Cieply of the New York Times has an excellent piece on the state of the delayed Tom Cruise movie, Valkyrie, which has been pushed back countless times, and which now is slated to open February 13th.

Because, you know, what better kind of Valentine's date movie than a Nazi Valentine's date movie?

Oh, Tom--time to turn to Xenu for help.

My favorite part of Cieply's story is this:

When United Artists said this month that it would again delay the release of "Valkyrie," in which Tom Cruise a German officer who tries to kill Hitler, the Web went into obituary mode.

One Hollywood Internet site, thehotblog.com, flatly declared, “Valkyrie is dead.” Another, defamer.com, said that the revival of United Artists had effectively died with it.

Meanwhile, Roger Friedman, a widely read Web reporter with a column on foxnews.com, had some career advice for Mr. Cruise: “He needs another ‘Jerry Maguire’-like romantic comedy, and he needs it now.”

The death notices are remarkable in that United Artists, in its current version, was financed just eight months ago. And there is no way to be certain about “Valkyrie” until the film, first set for release in June, then October, and now Feb. 13, 2009, finally opens.

In the interim Mr. Cruise, his partners at United Artists and the “Valkyrie” filmmakers are bracing for what will likely be a nine-month fight to prove their critics wrong. “We will not be daunted,” Paula Wagner, chief executive of United Artists, said last week.

During a 90-minute interview at the company’s headquarters in a Century City office tower, Ms. Wagner said she and her fellow executives were intent on overcoming negative reactions that she saw as rooted in ignorance of the process of building movie production companies.

“Anybody trying to dismiss us or write us off doesn’t understand the business,” Ms. Wagner said. She added: “Nothing is going to stop us. We are determined to make this work.”

Sounds like the talk of a Nazi.

Delusion is a terrible thing to face, folks.