Academy Award winner Charlize Theron is in talks to star opposite Tom Cruise in the thriller The Tourist, according to Variety.
Theron would play an Interpol agent who attempts to use a US holidaymaker to trap a criminal with whom she was once romantically involved.
The film is a remake of the 2005 French thriller Anthony Zimmer. The new version has been penned by the Oscar-winning British screenwriter Julian Fellowes, and is currently being redrafted by Christopher McQuarrie, who wrote Cruise's forthcoming second world war tale Valkyrie.
The Tourist is not under the auspices of United Artists, the troubled studio which Cruise owns and runs, however, although it's likely McQuarrie was brought on board at the actor's behest. Instead it's being made by French studio Canal Plus, which also produced the original. Bharat Nalluri, who shot the recent comedy Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day, is directing; production is expected to begin in March.
The original version starred Sophie Marceau and Yvan Attal. It was a critical success in France but failed to score at the box office.
Cruise, who has taken on a number of roles away from United Artists following the studio's recent travails, will next be seen in Valkyrie, the long-awaited, controversial thriller in which he plays a Nazi colonel who plotted to kill Hitler. Theron has the Guillermo Arriaga-directed The Burning Plain next on her slate.
