Paramount Pictures has announced that Tom Cruise will once again be back as Ethan Hunt in Mission Impossible 4. Cruise will be producing, along with Star Trek director J.J Abrams, and they are in the process of looking for a director in order to hit their planned Memorial Weekend release in 2011.

The crazy Cruise persona has died down over the last year or so, and I think audiences are ready to take Cruise seriously again. We will see him back in an action role later this year with Knight and Day, although that’s a comedy, so a return to his iconic role will be just what he needs.

Are you looking forward to a fourth outing? Who do you think should direct?

The first trailer for action-comedy Knight and Day starring Tom Cruise and Cameron Diaz has been released online. When I heard about the film I wasn’t sure how Cruise and Diaz would work together on-screen, but from the trailer it looks like they’ve got some good comedic chemistry.

In the film the fugitive couple are lead on a glamorous and sometimes deadly adventure where nothing and no one – even themselves – are what they seem. Amid shifting alliances and unexpected betrayals, they race across the globe, with their survival ultimately hinging on the battle of truth vs. trust.

Knight and Day (still not a fan of the title) is directed by James Mangold, director of Walk the Line and 3:10 to Yuma, and will be released next July.

Okay, so here’s the rundown. The Tourist was originally set up for Bharat Nalluri to direct and Tom Cruise to lead. Charlize Theron also joined as the female lead, however Tom Cruise then left to star in some action/comedy with Cameron Diaz. Sam Worthington was then brought on-board to replace him, however Charlize Theron then left and was replaced by Angelina Jolie. Director Bharat Nalluri also left the project, which prompted Spyglass Entertainment to hire Florian von Donnersmarck as director. Since leaving was the ‘in thing’ Sam Worthington bailed, and now according to THR Johnny Depp will be joining the project. Oh yeah, Alfonso Cuaron (Children of Men) is now directing.

So that’s Cruise + Nalluri + Theron – Cruise + Worthington – Theron + Jolie – Nalluri + Donnersmarck – Worthington + Depp + Cuaron = The Tourist

And what’s this casting merry-go-round movie about? An female Interpol agent uses an American tourist in an attempt to flush out an elusive criminal with whom she once had an affair.

In conclusion, it doesn’t matter who directs The Tourist, as long as they’ve got 2 A-listers in the lead roles. Although, i’m a fan of Alfonso Cuaron and Jolie and Depp together on-screen could work out quite well.

Sam Worthington is continuing his quest for worldwide domination and has replaced Tom Cruise in The Tourist, according to The Hollywood Reporter. He will be joining Charlize Theron who has been attached to the film for a while. Cruise left and instead decided to play an undercover agent in action-comedy Wichita with Cameron Diaz.

In The Tourist Theron will play a female Interpol agent who uses an American tourist (Worthington) in an attempt to flush out an elusive criminal with whom she once had an affair. Filming is scheduled to begin in January.

We were first introduced to Sam Worthington in Terminator Salvation and he is quickly becoming Hollywood’s new leading man. He will next be seen taking the lead in James Cameron’s Avatar and next year he’ll be battling mythological beasts in Clash of The Titans, chasing Nazi war criminals with Dame Helen Mirren in The Debt, and he’ll be playing around with Keira Knightley and Eva Mendes in Last Night. If he’s not careful he’ll become the envy (if he’s not already) of other lead actors for getting all the good roles, and for starring alongside all of these beauties.

With the success of Star Trek it looks like J.J. Abrams will be kept busy over the next few years with the sequels (if he wasn’t already busy enough with Lost, Fringe and a bunch of other stuff) but that hasn’t stopped him from joining even more projects. Spoiler TV scanned a magazine article which quoted Abrams as saying:

“I am incredibly honored that Tom (Cruise) has invited me back as a producer on Mission Impossible 4. says Abrams. “Tom and I have come up with a really cool idea we are pursuing.”

Unlike all the other quadrilogies/fourquels in the works (Spider-Man 4, Bourne 4, Pirates 4, Shrek 4) there doesn’t seem to be that many people screaming out for a Mission Impossible 4. M:I 3 made around $400 million worldwide, most of which was made overseas, however I think many more people would have seen it if it weren’t for Tom Cruises’ antics. After 3 years Cruise has slowly been working on his reputation, with a bunch of serious stuff and then Tropic Thunder. Maybe a return to his most well known role is what he needs?

According to Variety Tom Cruise is in talks to star in The Matarese Circle alongside Denzel Washington.

Cruise will go mano a mano with Washington as two bitter enemy spies who, after spending two decades trying to kill one another, find themselves in the crosshairs of the Matarese, a powerful group at the root of a conspiracy.

The trade says that the script by Michael Brandt and Derek Haas (Wanted) contemporizes Ludlum’s original Cold War premise.

This sounds somewhat interesting. Cruise is good at playing spies, and people will probably take him more seriously than they did with Valkyrie. MGM is looking to release the film sometime in 2010 and it will be directed by David Cronenberg.

A new trailer for Valkyrie has appeared online. As many of you know it stars Tom Cruise as Col. Claus von Stauffenberg (complete with American accent) and Bill Nighy (complete with English accent). Despite the obvious historical flaws and the movie getting pushed back several months, the trailer got me a little excited. But then again that’s what they are meant to do. Judge for yourself below!

We also have a new poster!

A few weeks ago there was talk around the internet that Tom Cruise would be voicing a villain in Shrek Goes Fourth. Well he isn’t.

“As of today, there is no truth to the Tom Cruise-Shrek 4 rumor,” rep Jeff Raymond tells E! News without further explanation.

That is all.

Here’s some more bad news for Tom Cruise and his upcoming Valkyrie movie. 11 extras fell out of a moving truck during filming in Berlin last year, and are now trying to sue United Artists for $11 million.

The accident happened almost exactly one year ago and saw all 11, still wearing their Wehrmacht uniforms, sent to the hospital with an array of injuries, ranging from bumps and bruises to broken ribs and pulled ligaments. One extra was kept in the hospital for four days on suspicion of internal injuries.

The actors fell onto the street when a fold-down side-rail on the bed of the truck — against which the thespians were leaning — failed. The group’s lawyer, Ariane Bluttner, says that United Studios knew that the trucks used in the filming were not entirely safe.

“The studio knew the trucks were rickety,” Bluttner told SPIEGEL ONLINE. “There had even been an internal memo about the railings.”

This would be devastating for United Artists, as Valkyrie probably won’t even make $11 million in it’s opening weekend. Although, I highly doubt a couple of bruises and a few pulled muscles is worth $1 million for each extra. If I was thrown from a truck I would just demand Tom Cruise perform the ‘Scientology Dance of Life’ to the tune of Milkshake by Kelis. That’ll teach em to keep their trucks safe and secure!

Tom Cruise and Spider-Man trilogy director Sam Raimi are setting up Sleeper at Warner Bros, according to The Hollywood Reporter. Sleeper was a comic book series written by Ed Brubaker with art by Sean Phillips and published by DC Comics under their Wildstorm imprint.

Sleeper centers on an operative whose fusion with an alien artifact makes him impervious to pain and allows him to pass it on to others through skin contact. He is placed undercover in a villainous organization by an intelligence agency and falls for a member of the group, named Miss Misery.

Even if Cruise opts not to do Sleeper, his interest in the project is propelling it forward, despite complicated rights issues that must be sorted out. Raimi has long been a fan of the book, and the project could have found homes at Sony and Regency if those issues hadn’t been so complex.

If Tom Cruise does end up starring in the film, it is likely that Warner Bros will aim to make a franchise out of it.