RUMOR: Cruise/Johansson Team-Up for R-Rated Eastwood Remake? [Update]

UPDATE: The usually reliable Empire City is also confirming the project, adding that it’s set to shoot in “early 2025”.

EARLIER: Director Christopher McQuarrie has mentioned, a few times, that he and Tom Cruise were going to team-up for a “gnarly” R-rated movie. This project has gained enough traction to have been dubbed by online fans as “The Gnarly Movie.”

Now we have “scooper” MyTimeToShineHello claiming that it’s actually a remake of Clint Eastwood’s 1977 thriller, “The Gauntlet,” and Scarlett Johansson is supposed to co-star with Cruise. Take this latest update with a major grain of salt.

In Eastwood’s film, he played a police officer tasked with escorting a prostitute to Las Vegas to testify against the mob. As you’d expect, things go haywire and not according to plan. I’m convinced Richard Donner used “The Gauntlet” as a blueprint for his 2006 Bruce Willis-starring film “16 Blocks.”

Last year Johansson mentioned that her dream role would be starring alongside Tom Cruise in a movie. A week later, Cruise told ET that he was down to make a movie with Johansson and went on to praise her acting skills:

I’d love to make a movie with her. I’ve been wanting to make movie with her. She is enormously talented. So charismatic, versatile. She has great physical ability obviously.

I’ve contacted Warner Bros for comment on the story, and will update this piece whenever I hear back from them. No trades have reported on it, which means it might be untrue.

Cruise signed a major deal with Warners earlier this year, kicking off a “strategic partnership” that would see him making “original” films for them, and a few franchise entries (such as the “Edge of Tomorrow” sequel). He’s already signed on for the next Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu film.

In 2020, McQuarrie teased this R-rated project as having a “very un-Tom character” and being “hard-edged.” We’ll see if it ends up being “The Gauntlet” which, by the way, was not one of Eastwood’s finer moments.