Variety has confirmed Tom Cruise’s next film will be the action-comedy Wichita with Cameron Diaz and directed by James Mangold for 20th Century Fox. The film appears to have won Cruise’s affection over the Len Wiseman directed thriller Motorcade as both Cruise and Diaz are said to have approved Scott Frank’s latest draft of the script and expectation is to have the film in theaters for summer 2010.
The film sounds like it may have something of a Mr. and Mrs. Smith kind of vibe with Cruise playing an undercover agent who gets thrown together with a woman (Diaz) who has man trouble. Obviously, not a direct comparison to the plot of Smith, but the idea alone sounds like it may be playing for the same kind of jokes although I expect Diaz will play more of a damsel in distress kind of role as opposed to the bad-ass played by Angelina Jolie in Smith.
Wichita will be James Mangold’s follow-up to 3:10 to Yuma.
Cruise was said to be seriously considering Motorcade with Len Wiseman (Live Free or Die Hard), but I expect that role will now go to another actor with Cruise still eying potential roles in the Bharat Nalluri-directed Spyglass remake The Tourist; the David Cronenberg-directed MGM drama The Matarese Circle; the Universal/Working Title romantic comedy Lost for Words; and The 28th Amendment, the Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck-directed Warner Bros. thriller.
