Jolie gets a pinch of 'Salt' (VAR, THR, BIZ)

By Nancy Tartaglione-Vialatte

In a gender-bending twist, Angelina Jolie is close to a deal to star in "Edwin A. Salt," a film once expected to star Tom Cruise in the title role. Media reports now say that the script is being redrafted - title change included - by Kurt Wimmer as a star vehicle for Jolie with Philip Noyce still attached to direct.

Lorenzo di Bonaventura and Sunil Perkash are producing the film in which Jolie would play a CIA officer who's accused by a defector of being a Russian sleeper spy and must elude capture long enough to establish her innocence.

Cruise's flirtation with the project recently ended while other male movie stars had also been circling. Jolie reportedly took a shine to the well-regarded script. Sources told Variety that it won't take too much of an overhaul to slot her into the story.

In other Cruise news, he is reportedly loosely attached to play a chef in a school-set Working Title comedy called "Food Fight."

With the good notices Cruise is getting from his cameo turn in "Tropic Thunder," folks in the blogosphere have wondered how he went from starring in a hot high-profile project ("Salt") to a fish out of water romantic comedy ("Food").

Responding to the comments and news, the Risky Business blog has this to say:

Cruise's arc speaks to the paradox A-listers face as their career moves along. With increased fame, they get more bankable, and with bankability comes bigger -- for men, that means more action -- roles, which in turn has them losing the relatability that made them famous in the first place. Cruise came to prominence as an underwear-prancing regular kid in "Risky Business." if he could do something that winning now -- admittedly not easy with twenty-five years of roles and baggage -- he'd restore at least some of his rep. But you won't find too many stars of his level playing that kind of normalcy.

In that context, today's news may be welcome. We don't imagine he'll go total rom-com and get away from the one-man hero parts completely; there's a lot of Valkyrie in him yet. But with a little more laughter, at him and with him, his image will be a lot better off (even the Tropic Thunder part seems to be helping), which could mean that it's not out of the realm that some of those Cruise Control headlines turn into Cruise Comeback ones.