Actor, Wagner tubthump for ‘Lions,’ ‘Valkyrie’
Cinema Expo went out with a bang as Tom Cruise made his first trip here for UA’s presentation to Euro exhibs while Universal took the limelight Thursday morning.
Cruise and Paula Wagner came to Amsterdam to introduce international exhibs to what Wagner described as the “newly rejuvenated” United Artists, and tubthump for the first two pics on the slate, “Lions for Lambs” and “Valkyrie.”
UA plans to release four to six films a year. Although the pair revealed no new projects, Wagner told exhibs to save a space for UA’s upcoming slate.
“We are working on a number of other wonderful projects so please set aside some playing time for us,” she said. Both Wagner and Cruise referred to UA’s history and promised to live up to it.
“The goals that we have and the kind of pictures that we are interested in making I hope will represent the great history of what United Artists has stood for,” Cruise said.
Wagner promised the new UA’s slate would be as varied as that of the old UA.
“We want to make a diverse slate of movies from action, thrillers to romantic comedies and everything in between,” she said.
Cruise spoke to delegates at length about helmer Bryan Singer’s “Valkyrie,” which begins principal photography in Germany in mid-July. Cruise plays the leader of a plot to assassinate Adolf Hitler in 1944.
However, he made no reference to reports that permit holdups are because of his affiliation to Scientology.
“It is a picture that when I was reading it, my hands started sweating,” Cruise said. “It was incredibly exciting and compelling.”
The script was written by Christopher McQuarrie (“The Usual Suspects”) and newcomer Nathan Alexander. Cruise’s high praise for popular Dutch thesp Carice van Houten (“Black Book”), with whom he co-stars in “Valkyrie,” drew whoops of approval from local industryites.
Cruise envisages the pic will be in theaters in “one and a half years.”
The UA presentation closed with the first public screening of footage from “Lions for Lambs,” which is released worldwide on Nov. 9. Attendees were treated to 5½ minutes of footage from the Robert Redford helmed pic about the war on terror, which Wagner described as “a powerful and emotional story about courage, sacrifice and the human consequences of a complicated war that has divided our world.”
Cruise paid tribute to Redford. “He is a cinema icon and a legend and he has really changed cinema, the way pictures are looked at and released.”
(…)
Expo organizers report that attendance for this edition is up 10% on the 1,250 delegates who registered in 2006. (Variety).
Dutch entertainment program RTL Boulevard has a video of Tom at the Expo, click here to watch it! (The presenter of the show introduces the video clip by saying Tom’s here to promote his new movie Lions for Lambs but all the presenter wanted to know if Tom knows Carice van Houten and if he had met her).
On their site a summary of his visit, (translated):
Tom Cruise hasn’t let his Dutch fans down today. The 44-year old superstar arrived with three black limousines at the Amsterdam RAI, where he held a speech for its fifteenth edition of the Cinema Expo International, Europe’s greatest gathering of the film- and theatre industry.
More than one hundred admirers of the actor came to the congress centre to catch a glimpse of their idol. Cruise, who ignored the mass of gathered press, really appreciated that and spend more than half an hour signing autograph after autograph and let his fans take pictures of them. Dressed in a slim, black tuxedo, shiny leather shoes and dark sunglasses he looked like a true megastar.
Not until a reporter handed him some wooden clogs for his wife Katie Holmes and their daughter Suri, Cruise paid some attention to the journalists. He was eager to accept the wooden shoes. To the question how Suri is doing he answered she’s great.
He didn’t meet Carice van Houten, who will play Cruise’s wife in the movie ‘Valkyrie’, yet, he told reporters. But he did see her work and named her a great actress. He also said he was sorry not to have visited The Netherlands before, since it’s such a great country.
At the expo, where important productions like ‘Evan Almighty’ and ‘Surf’s up’ are presented, Cruise speaks about his new movie ‘Lions for lambs’, which is directed by Robert Redford. Next to Cruise and Redford there’s a part for Meryl Streep in the movie, which will be in Dutch theatres this November.
People also mentioned Tom’s visit to Amsterdam:
“Cruise, who spent last week in the French Riviera with Holmes and daughter Suri, 1, was in the Dutch capital promoting his drama Lions for Lambs on the final day of Europe’s Cinema Expo movie-distributors’ convention.
Accompanied by his producing partner Paula Wagner, Cruise showed a five-minute clip of the movie, in which he plays a congressman opposite Meryl Streep and Robert Redford.
The actor, wearing a black suit and sunglasses, spent only a few hours in Amsterdam, spending almost an hour signing autographs, taking pictures and joking with fans – even signing one admirer’s forehead.
He laughed when local reporters gave him three pairs of traditional Dutch wooden clogs – two adult-size pairs and one tiny set. “Are the others for Katie and Suri? Thank you!” he said. Cruise said he couldn’t figure out why he hadn’t been to Amsterdam before, adding: “It’s beautiful.” “
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