Sat Dec 20, 2008 — by Robert Greenberger

Tom Cruise Mulls Becoming a Champion

May Join McQuarrie/Del Toro Team on BBC Adaptation

Tom Cruise and screenwriter Christopher McQuarrie are becoming a formidable duo with three different projects in the works.

The two met during the production of Valkyrie, opening this month, which McQuarrie wrote for his other pal, director Bryan Singer.

McQuarrie had already been developing The Champions, based on the old BBC series with producer Guillermo del Toro and now United Artists’ co-owner may star in the project, the studio’s best chance at creating its own super-powered franchise.

The series lasted all of one season, 1968-1969, and was syndicated in America a few years later. It featured “the adventures of a team of secret government agents who are rescued from a Himalayan plane crash by an advanced civilization and given superhuman abilities.”

McQuarrie and Mason Alley are writing Flying Tigers, based on the volunteer fighter squadron formed to help the Chinese fight the Japanese before the U.S. entered World War II, for New Regency.  The subject has been near and dear to Cruise who may now be interested in acting in the production.

Finally, Spyglass hired McQuarrie to rewrite The Tourist, an espionage drama, for Cruise to appear in with Charlize Theron.
 

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