Date: 9th October 2000

Cruise Goes Gung-Ho For New Role


Hollywood hunk TOM CRUISE is set to go gung-ho for his latest big screen role - as an heroic rebel World War II soldier.

The MISSION IMPOSSIBLE actor will don fatigues and train a makeshift army, in action drama, FERTIG.

A screenplay has been penned by GLADIATOR scriptwriter WILLIAM NICHOLSON. The film will be set in the jungles of the Far East, with Cruise eager to play the lead role.

Nicholson says, "I have reason to believe Tom Cruise will be doing it and he would be fabulous. "It is a real hero's story about an extraordinary guy at the time of the greatest military disaster in American history - the surrender of 80,000 American soldiers to the Japanese in the Philippines during World War II. "This soldier Fertig was the only one not to surrender and instead went into the jungle. He gradually built a kingdom and an army and fought his way back."

It would be a radically different role to Cruise's last turn as a soldier. He played a bitter, crippled Vietnam veteran in BORN ON THE 4TH OF JULY. (NB/WN/RGS)

Source: WENN