Tom Cruise Playing A Disgraced Politician In Untitled Warner Bros. Comedy

The Dan Fogelman-scripted comedy Crazy Stupid Love is looking like one of the highlights of the summer movie lineup, and given that the guy just came off writing Tangled and the news that he has a comedy with Tom Cruise lined up at Warner Bros., it must be pretty good to be Fogelman right now. According to Deadline Warner picked up Fogelman's untitled pitch that would find Cruise as a politician returning to his hometown in the wake of a sex scandal.

Fogelman spent yesterday in a bidding war among five different studios for the pitch, and according to Deadline he snagged just under $2 million up front to write the script for the studio. It's not hard to understand why they were willing to shell out-- Fogelman is a proven writer, but more than that, he's got Tom Cruise on board to play a role that both touches the zeitgeist-- how many politicians have we seen resign after sex scandal?-- and might give Cruise the chance to show us something different onscreen. Between this and his upcoming role as a washed-up rock star in Rock of Ages, Cruise has some interesting projects lined up. Maybe it's a recognition that Knight and Day didn't do so well last summer and his action star days are behind him? (Well, after Mission: Impossible-- Ghost Protocol comes out at least). Or maybe, just maybe, Cruise is an actor who still has every option available, and he's taking advantage of it.