Tom Cruise has some big shoes to fill. Some big, thickly accented, monster-hunting shoes.
Universal announced this week that the A-lister is attached to take the lead in a reboot of the previously Hugh Jackman-starring Van Helsing, which is one of several films on the studio’s production slate. Thanks to his foray into Anne Rice territory, Cruise is no stranger to a big-screen bloodsucker, but going from vampire to vampire slayer? Now that’s range.
This time around, to ensure that Cruise’s incarnation fares better than Jackman’s, the gothic reimagining is bringing in the big guns, enlisting the help of a couple of guys who know a thing or two about franchises.
The reboot came about as a result of a two-year production deal Universal signed with writers Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci, two names eminently familiar to movie enthusiasts.
The writing team is not only the brain trust behind the forthcoming Star Trek 2, but also Transformers and Mission Impossible: III, where they previously teamed with Cruise. The dynamic duo was also recently brought in by Sony to give a once-over to the script for the sequel to The Amazing Spider-Man.
In other words, they know what they’re doing. Which is good news for their Van Helsing cohorts, Cruise included: While Jackman’s stab at the slayer grossed more than $300 million worldwide, it wasn’t exactly heralded as a creative masterpiece.
Show us what you can do, gentlemen.
by Gina Serpe
