We’ve been hearing for many months now that Tom Cruise – of “being crazy-ass Tom Cruise” fame – is the man Guillermo del Toro wants to lead his adaptation of H.P. Lovecraft’s AT THE MOUNTAINS OF MADNESS. Most recently we had producer James Cameron saying Cruise wants to do the picture , but it’s never been verified that he’s actually starring in the epic horror tale. Well, one person seems pretty damn certain he’s on board, and that person is producer Don Murphy.
Murphy, the volatile producer of such films as TRANSFORMERS and SHOOT ‘EM UP, talked to io9 and apparently confirmed that, to use the article’s exact words, “Tom Cruise is set to star” in MADNESS. Murphy also said that the film will begin production in June, something we’ve been hearing for a while now. (Though, as recently as February, the project didn’t have an official greenlight for production.)
Cruise just signed on to do some horrible-sounding thing called ROCK OF AGES, co-starring Alec Baldwin, Mary J. Blige, and Julianne Hough (I don’t know who she is but she’s pictured below). That should be taking up his time for a few months, after which he might just be ready to climb del Toro’s mountain, as it were… As with anything this precarious, only time will tell.