As I am sure many of you remember, Tom Cruise was for a very long time attached to star in Iron Man before Robert Downey Jr. was ultimately cast to play the Playboy billionaire. Over the past four or five years Cruise has gone on to have something of a Hollywood identity crisis thanks to some eratic behavior and, of course, his belief in Scientology. However, it seems as of late he is getting ready to star in more than one film a year and now he may even have a comic book property in his back pocket.
Cruise, along with Sam Raimi, is attached to star in Sleeper over at Warner Bros. The pic is an adaptation of the DC Comics/Wildstorm comic that Raimi would produce with his Star Road Entertainment partner Josh Donen. “Sleeper” was written by Ed Brubaker with art by Sean Phillips and ran from 2003-05.
The story 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.
It appears Sleeper may become his second to next feature as the Bharat Nalluri directed thriller The Tourist is looking more likely to be his next film following the December release of Valkyrie. The Tourist follows an American tourist who finds his life in danger when a female Interpol agent uses him as a dupe to flush out an elusive criminal with whom she once had an affair.
However, it does appear “Sleeper” is having some rights issues and Cruise starring in it is not a sure thing, but his interest is pushing the project into high gear.
