Two new female leads have now been signed to join Tom Cruise in a new sci-fi movie formally called ‘Horizons’ (and before that it was called ‘Oblivion’). In an exclusive, Variety is reporting that Andrea Riseborough and Olga Kurylenko now have the roles of playing Cruise’s wife and the mysterious stranger that makes him question the life around him.
The now untitled movie is set on an apocalyptic future where the population lives in the clouds as Earth has now become inhabitable. Cruise plays a soldier who repairs surface drones that go around and destroy remnants of alien life on the planet. When he finds a mysterious woman in a crash-landed space pod, it causes a chain of events that forces him to question his world view.
There are conflicting reports as to which role each actress is playing. Variety has Kurylenko playing the mysterious woman while THR has her playing Cruise’s “lover and partner, who tethers him to the world above the clouds while he’s doing repairwork.” What is known is that Kurylenko will be taking the place of Jessica Chastain who had to bow out of the project after signing on to act in Kathryn Bigelow’s (‘Hurt Locker’, ‘Point Break’) Osama bin Laden feature and finding out that she would be unable to arrange her schedule to accommodate both films. Original reports had Chastain in the lead female role but it was not specified which role that was (my money is on mysterious stranger role). Kurylenko is best known as the Bond girl in ‘Quantum of Solace’ and will soon be seen on Starz’s upcoming series ‘Magic City.’
Riseborough is signed on for the other female lead although it has been reported that she didn’t initially test for either part last year. This project will be her American debut and if it does well, will launch her career into Hollywood films. Up until now, Riseborough has only been featured in British films, most recently as Wallis Simpson in Madonna’s film ‘W.E.’
Almost every high profile young actress auditioned for the two female lead roles in the movie. Kurylenko had auditioned for the same part as Chastain along with Olivia Wilde (‘Tron: Legacy’), Brit Marling and Noomi Rapace (‘Prometheus’). Although initially Kurylenko lost to Chastain, Cruise apparently liked her from the start. The other lead role (the part of Cruise’s wife) reportedly had Hayley Atwell (‘Captain America: The First Avenger’), Diane Kruger (‘Inglorious Bastards’) and Kate Beckinsale (‘Underworld: Awakening’) auditioning for the part.
The film is currently undergoing a rewrite by Michael Arndt and production is hoped to start in March in order to allow it to be the next film Cruise will work on after his current filming on ‘One Shot.’ Production is listed to last 6 months after which Cruise will be working on his next sci-fi film ‘We Are Mortals.’
This now untitled sci-fi film will be directed by Joseph Kosinski and is based on his illustrated novel ‘Oblivion.’ It is set to be released in the summer of 2013. I’m sure that when production starts, we’ll finally get to know which actress will play which role.
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with boyfriend Danny Huston
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