Boys Will Be Girls: Angelina Jolie is in negotiations to replace Tom Cruise as the titular role in Edwin A. Salt, except both that title and role will change when Kurt Wimmer revises the script accordingly for Columbia. Phillip Noyce is still attached to direct the story of a CIA agent who must prove (s)he's not a Russian sleeper spy. Is this because Tom Cruise's fat-suit cameo in Tropic Thunder is less funny than you're imagining? No, but that doesn't make it any less true. [HR]
On the Other Hand: "With buzz surrounding his comedic turn in Tropic Thunder," Tom Cruise is loosely attached to Food Fight, a warmhearted (a.k.a. lame) comedy about a snooty New York chef forced to cook meals at a school cafeteria. Hollywood Reporter says he hasn't done comedy for a while, but they obviously didn't see Valkyrie. [HR]
Abrams All Shook Up: What kind of disaster movie does J.J. Abrams want to produce now that fanboys hunger for more shaky-cam nausea-inducing Cloverfield epics? An earthquake movie for Universal, that's what kind, presumably inspired by last month's widely Tumblred temblor. The Omen's David Seltzer will be writing, which as we all know from seeing Cloverfield, actually means "scribbling out a ten-page outline the night before it's due." [HR]
Penn and the Argonauts: X-Men's Zack Penn is writing and producing The Argonauts for Fox in its latest attempt to prove Hollywood's theorem that Homoeroticism + Togas = $$$. Story follows the plucky band of muscular sailors who accompanied Jason looking for the Golden Fleece. But what they found � was each other. [Variety]
Wallace to the Post: Braveheart's Randall Wallace is "saddling up" to direct Secretariat for Disney (good "saddle" joke, Variety). The story follows the Triple Crown-winning horse and its owner, Penny Chenery, a woman who went from a horse-ambivalent housewife to "the first lady of racing." As for Wallace, he last directed We Were Soldiers in 2002, so you might say he's "back in the saddle" after being "thrown" by "mediocre box office for his boring war movie." [Variety]
TV Remake Roundup: Television is the newest front in Hollywood's War or Original Ideas. First up? Hawaii Five-O-2 is on its way to CBS, thanks to Criminal Minds' exec producer Ed Bernero, although we won't sleep soundly until we hear the new theme song's "face-lift." Then there's The Witches of Eastwick coming to ABC from Dawson's Creek's Maggie Friedman, whose theme song we've never hummed in the shower but we're sure is quite lovely. [Variety]
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