Noyce talks Salt

Garth Franklin, the Down Under Wonder who runs Dark Horizons, chatted up fellow Aussie Phillip Noyce and got some juicy bits regarding the director’s currently filming spy flick SALT.

You may know that the project was originally called EDWIN A. SALT and was meant to star Tom Cruise. What happened there?  “We discussed the film with Tom, we had a table read with various actors, including Samuel L. Jackson, who kindly played one of the parts, just so we could hear the script read” says Noyce. “Tom wasn’t prepared to commit to the script as it was – I mean, his main fears were that the character was too close to Ethan Hunt, being a rogue spy, with extraordinary abilities“.

After some substantial script tinkering and the removal of a penis, Angelina Jolie stepped in as the main character. How different will the finished film be without that dangler? “The locomotive of ideas that drive the movie are the same,” Noyce reassures. “An undercover CIA operative is accused of being a Russian mole, and has to go on the run to defend themselves. That’s been the same since day one. Following the trend in action-adventure spy movies, it has evolved into a story where we hope at all times that the audience take seriously the emotional interplay between the characters, and are very, very involved on an emotional level with the story. As well as getting enormous thrills and spills, and all the other popcorn elements that you’d hope to see in a summer movie.”

Noyce (who also directed Jolie in THE BONE COLLECTOR) talks more about her SALT performance, along with some of his other planned projects, over at Gaaarth’s home RIGHT HERE.