Tom Cruise has never been hotter. Just as his outrageous comedic performance in Tropic Thunder hits theaters and his interest in playing a snooty chef in the family film Food Fight is made known, word gets out that he’s also considering working on The Tourist, a remake of the 2005 French thriller Anthony Zimmer.

Bharat Nalluri, (HBO’s Tsunami, Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day) is on board to direct, and Julian Fellowes, (Gosford Park) is working on the screenplay about an American tourist whose life becomes endangered when an Interpol agent uses him to help her catch an elusive, international criminal.

Cruise had been wrapped up in the delayed release of Valkyrie, directed by Bryan Singer. A project from his own company, United Artists, Valkyrie has one into one set back after another. It appears that Cruise has finally moved beyond it.