Image Credit: Christopher Polk/Getty ImagesParamount and MTV Films confirmed today that they are developing a movie based on Tom Cruise’s raunchy producer role from the 2008 film Tropic Thunder. Cruise will star in and produce the movie, along with Tropic co-star and director Ben Stiller and Stuart Cornfeld of Red Hour Films. Michael Bacall (Scott Pilgrim vs. the World) will write the screenplay.
The announcement comes only days after Cruise reprised the memorable role at Sunday’s MTV Movie Awards. As Les Grossman, Cruise spewed the character’s signature expletive-fueled commands and even danced with Jennifer Lopez. Paramount issued a tongue-in-cheek release today saying they have “secured the life rights to Grossman,” who is described as having “recently mentored talents such as Rob Pattinson and Taylor Lautner.”
Stiller released this statement today: “Les Grossman’s life story is an inspiring tale of the human class struggle to achieve greatness against all odds. He has assured me he plans to quote ‘F**king kill the sh*t out of this movie and make Citizen f**king Kane look like a piece of crap home movie by the time we are done.’ I am honored to be working with him.” Added Adam Goodman, Paramount Film Group President, “Everything I learned in this business, I’ve learned from Les. I started out as his assistant, and from the first day he threw his desk at me when I got his lunch order wrong, I have loved him like a father.”
The Paramount press release also included a “statement” from Grossman after he was asked what the screenplay would be about: “To quote my great friend Kirk Lazarus, `I don’t read the script, the script reads me.”’ Lazarus was a character in Tropic that was played by Robert Downey Jr.
awesome!!!
I second that!
Seriously! This character is so revolting it made me hate Tropic Thunder. Not funny, only repulsive and seriously reveals his crazies.
It’s the fact that he’s so revolting that makes him such an authentic Hollywood mogul.
Looks like another MCGrubber to me.
Exactly what I thought, amusing for three minutes…This is not where his comeback lies. Maybe he just do like Ricky Martin did…and lay low for awhile.
You could be right, but if they spin it a la Ari Gold with some sad newbie actor as his new talent (maybe have Bill Hader’s character from Tropic show up like Brando in Appoclypse Now), it could be funny. Les Grossman is funny in small portions but 90 minutes straight would be a disaster (IMHO).
I’d much rather see “Satan’s Alley” than this project. After all, it won the coveted Crying Monkey Award at the Beijing Film Festival.
I wish Tom Cruise would retire, come out of the closet, or something.
Really? Didn’t tom cruise bashing stop like two years ago. You can’t tell me you hate every single one of his movies.
Seriously, he shut up about the Scientology stuff and that’s good enough for me.
This was as inevitable as it gets. should be a funny movie
Part of me worries this is too much of a good thing, but if they give it a biz-y “Kid Stays in the Picture”-spoof kind of quality, it could be great.
yeah, hopefully with Stiller atteched to the project, it will be of quality. i know the character of Les can be a bit grating, but im starting to warm up to Tom Cruise.
After awhile the character grated on me..
this is terrible….it was a bad cameo in a not so great movie….
“a not so great movie”? Not sure I’d like the film’s you like boy. Tropic Thunder was a good laugh.
Wow. You officially have no taste and are hereby banned from talking about movies ever again.
Now, now. This probably comes from someone who bawled for ten days straight when the Twilight Saga didn’t get any Academy Award nominations. We’ve got to be sensitive to these people.
what the…
how the…
No soup for you!
Banned from ever commenting again.
nope…this is coming from someone who likes their hollywood satires sharp as knives like The Player – not dumbed down and pandering like Tropic Thunder.
Half right.. very good cameo in a not so great movie.. Jack Black and Stiller were terrible.. but Cruise and Downey were excellent.. so was McConahey(sp?) Wouldn’t have been as bad if they didn’t show every funny line a hundred times during the trailer.
Really? Because I distinctly remember a few funny lines which most certainly did not make the trailer. “I’m a lead farmer, motherf***er!” “I don’t know what it’s called but I know the sound it makes when IT LIES!” Jack Black’s begging at the tree. 90% of Les Grossman’s dialogue … I don’t know what trailer you saw but I must’ve seen something different. Anyway, you obviously didn’t like the movie. I did. And I’d like to see part 2 (as if, if the script is half-decent, we’re not going to see appearances by most of the Tropic cast).
The last thirty minutes make the movie (when I have rewatched, that is all I tend to view).I hope to one day use the Lead Farmer quote in life.
Really? You dare to put filmboy as part of your name and thought Tropic Thunder was a bad movie?
Seriously, a nutless monkey could do your comments.
Oh please the moive sucked and is over rated and part of the new trend of bad movies getting good reviews.
bad bad news
With Stiller on board it should be a hit….now if only they can get JLo to co-star…wow! I’d see that.
would have been funnier a year ago.
That’s basically what I thought during the awards — I mean, the movie came out 2 summers ago!!! Most of the tweens prob didn’t even get the joke/reference!
A movie with F bombs isn’t aimed at tweens.
Terrible. Awful. Crap.
Take a step back and literally f**k your own face!
I think you proved their point
thank god stiller’s attached…i dunno though. i think grossman’s a great cameo charcater…i’m not sure i could handle an hour and a half plus of him…
I’m almost as excited about this as I was about ‘Magruber.’ Almost.
This is the same as taking an SNL character that works in 3-5 minutes skits and making a 90+ minute movie….it’s almost always a bad idea.
I’m not sure how this will turn out, it could either be really great or really terrible. But with Stiller (and hopefully RDJ) involved it has great potential.
So, is that actually serious? Those statements are hilarious, and it sounds all very, as Ms. Sperling put it, “tongue-in-cheek”. But if it’s real, then count me as a skeptic. Les Grossman is a great character, and Tom Cruise is awesome, but I find it hard to believe that they could pull off a movie with Grossman as the lead character. It’s one of those times where he works best in the supporting role.
They key will be to keep his screen time at a minimum, even if he is the focus. They’ll need to construct a good wrap-around story to achieve this.
I have faith in these people. Cruise is always entertaining, and all of these people are intelligent in terms of making their films entertaining throughout. I am quite certain that they realize there will be many skeptics out there, and that they will need to not half ass it in order to give people what they want to see. They may be reading these comments right now….
Good for him. It’s the very first time since AGES that I find Tom Cruise believable in a role, believable enough to even score an Oscar nomination if the plot is deep and interesting enough. They better handle this very carefully.