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In the latest twist to the ongoing soap opera that is Tom Cruise's post-midlife career, the German government have banned his latest picture from shooting on Germany military sites. The film, in which Cruise has been cast as Claus von Stauffenberg, a real-life German hero who attempted to assassinate Adolf Hitler in 1944, is set to be produced by Cruise and directed by Bryan Singer. Quoting from this AP story:

Defense Ministry spokesman Harald Kammerbauer said the film makers "will not be allowed to film at German military sites if Count Stauffenberg is played by Tom Cruise, who has publicly professed to being a member of the Scientology cult".

"In general, the Bundeswehr (German military) has a special interest in the serious and authentic portrayal of the events of July 20, 1944 and Stauffenberg's person," Kammerbauer said.

As I wrote here back in March, Cruise's decision to take on a major German historical figure was basically asking for trouble. The German government is notoriously anti-Scientology, to the point where the United Nations has actually tried to step in to curtail what they see as the state's religious bigotry; Tom Cruise is the world's most high-profile Scientologist. When the project was first announced, Stauffenberg's surviving family actually protested Cruise's involvement, based on their suspicion that the film "will be financed by the sect [Scientology] and be used to get across its propaganda."

Tom Cruise could very well be insane, but he's not stupid--he knows that to the average, freedom of religion-loving American, Germany's reaction to Scientology comes off as crazier than any aspect of Scientology itself. Of all the projects for Cruise to decide to both star in and produce, he had to have known that this one would produce a flood of stories just like this. It's a genius move: free press for years leading up to the release of the film, all of it painting Tom and his Church as victims of state-sponsored prejudice and oppression. Screw shooting on location--Cruise will pay to replicate the German locations on a soundstage, and get 3,000 words in Entertainment Weekly for his trouble.

Bloggy reactions to this latest development are, predictably, anti-Cruise, because therein lie all the good jokes. My favorite comes from What Would Tyler Durden Do?:

I wish the US would stand up to the these crazy whores like the Germans do. What the hell are they gonna do? It's a religion based on spaceships. The worst that can happen is that Cruise will pray to his outer space puma or whatever it is they believe in and then that thing from Lilo and Stich will come to earth, play records and go surfing. I'm willing to take my chances.

You can track additional blog chatter on WeSmirch.

Despite the fact that there was a fair amount of Evan Almighty doomcasting going into the weekend, most of this morning's box office reports spin the sequel's $32.3 million take as low enough to qualify as a shock.

Gregg Kilday's writeup for the Hollywood Reporter arrives with the headline "Low tide for Universal's 'Almighty' bow"; the story goes on to acknowledge that Universal is in the odd of position of "battling a perception" that the weekend's number 1 film is a failure. "[W]hile the movie might have represented the best showing ever for newly minted star Carell -- surpassing the $21.4 million opening of The 40-Year-Old Virgin in 2005 -- Evan now must prove itself in the face of those who already are pointing to it as the first big-budget victim of the summer."

Box Office Mojo directly contrasted Evan's debut to Bruce Almighty's record-setting $68 million bow, ultimately blaming Evan's "all wet" performance on its lack of fantasy appeal--who wants to live vicariously through a dutiful subject of God?

Besides [Jim] Carrey, Bruce Almighty had a broadly-appealing premise—"what if you were God?"—whereas Evan Almighty was less secular, riffing on a specific story from the Bible. Evan also suffered from passivity. Carell's put upon in the movie, whereas Carrey was empowered to do whatever he wanted in Bruce, from circumventing everyday annoyances to flights of fancy.

On her Deadline Hollywood blog, Nikki Finke's headline paired Evan's "failure" with a 65% drop for last weekend's number one film, Fantastic Four: The Rise of the Silver Surfer, but devoted the bulk of her write-up to flogging Universal yet again for spending $200 million on a movie with limited appeal outside of faith-based audiences. Interestingly, when Finke's blog post was picked up for syndication by The Huffington Post, Arianna and friends ran with the headline, "Jolie's "Mighty Heart" Tanks At The Box Office" -- inflating three sentences of Finke's lengthy evaluation into a tabloid-appropriate distortion. Finke would not be one to shy away from accusing a movie star's vanity project of having "tanked" if that was indeed the case, but she doesn't really go there; she's actually relatively gentle on Heart, characterizing its low gross as a counter-programming move gone wrong.

Finally, at Cinematical, Ryan Stewart interprets 1408's 2nd-place, $20 million bow as a potentially fatal blow to the R-rated horror wave:

1408, which is PG-13, had one of the biggest horror openings in a while, and was noticeably more successful than Eli Roth's torture-fest, Hostel: Part II. [...] The studio lemmings will not miss this weekend's 1408 surprise, and, if they are persuaded that PG-13 is the wave of the future, they might put the kibosh on any number of R-rated horror films in the works.

Those lemmings are also unlikely to miss being called "lemmings".