Sony Pictures should send Tom Cruise a helicopter as a token of thanks for deciding not to do “Salt.” It’s hard to imagine this fading icon could have done half a good a job as Angelina Jolie, who should emerge as Hollywood’s top female star for her stunning performance as a CIA operative who’s accused of being a Russian mole in this crackling action thriller, opening next Friday.
My esteemed colleague Kyle Smith will be reviewing, but I will report after this afternoon’s critics screening that Jolie invests great credibility in the movie’s wild Russian plot to plunge the United States into a world war. She is superbly abetted by the expert direction of Philip Noyce, who precisely calibrates exactly how over the top a summer blockbuster can go without taking you out of Kurt Wimmer’s story, which had originally been written for Cruise.
And is the scene where Jolie sneaks into the White House — employing a “Mission: Impossible”-style mask to masquerade as a man — an inside joke at Cruise’s expense?
Fortuitously for Sony, Cruise instead opted for the romantic thriller “Knight and Day,” fatally miscalcuating that he had the comic chops to pull off a Cary Grant style role. He hasn’t, and an overdeveloped, tone-deaf script and a miscast director (not to mention Cameron Diaz) didn’t help matters. The flick has flopped so poorly in North America that Paramount — which on the record says they are committed to making “Mission: Impossible 3” with Cruise — is reportedly closely watching the overseas grosses, and, the Hollywood Reporter intimates, is ready to pay Cruise off and ditch him for another young, more popular actor if they need to.
If the studio wants Jolie as his replacement, she probably won’t come cheaply. Jolie reportedly got $20 million for “Salt” and if it does as well as I think it will — it’s reportedly tracking through the roof — she could rival Will Smith as the highest-pair star in the world.