14 DAY TRIAL // Clint Eastwood seems to have found himself another leading man for his next project. After Will Smith and Leonardo DiCaprio were considered and then dropped, the director is now talking with Tom Cruise for the lead in “A Star Is Born,” it has emerged.
The remake, which has been in the works at Warner Bros. for a very long time, has singer / actress Beyonce as the female lead.
Useless to say, it also features lots of singing.
Deadline has learned that Cruise has been approached with an offer for the part, with Eastwood thinking he could be the right man for the job, especially since he already has some experience playing a rock god.
“Tom Cruise is talking to Clint Eastwood about joining Beyonce in A Star Is Born, the Warner Bros remake,” Deadline informs, citing unnamed inside sources.
“This comes after Cruise morphed into an Axl Rose-like 80s rock icon in Rock of Ages, so he’d be able to handle the singing part of that comes with playing an over the hill musician who helps launch the star of an ingenue he falls in love with and who watches him slide while her star soars,” adds the same report.
Whether Cruise is even interested in such a project is hard to say, but Deadline points out that his busy schedule might get in the way of doing it, even if he wants it.
“We have no idea if Cruise will say yes, or if the schedules will mesh since he’s just beginning shooting on the Joseph Kosinski-directed Oblivion, followed by the Doug Liman-directed All You Need Is Kill Are for Warner Bros.,” the publication says.
However, by June, a decision should be made, this being the month when Beyonce has agreed to start shooting.
Production was delayed once when she announced she was pregnant with her first child, and Warners made the decision to wait until she was ready to come back instead of having her replaced with someone else.
As of now, the names attached to the list of potential candidates for the male lead includes, besides the three mentioned above (Smith, DiCaprio, Cruise), Russell Crowe, Eminem and Christian Bale.