Mike Fleming

EXCLUSIVE: Now that Tom Cruise has closed his deal to co-star in Rock of Ages, I’m hearing that the next big star New Line and director Adam Shankman want is Oscarcast co-host Anne Hathaway. They’re in talks with Hathaway to play the role of the uptight journalist who intends to eviscerate Cruise’s decadent rock star Stacee Jax with an expose. Instead, she falls for the charms of the rocker, and after they duet to the Foreigner song I Want To Know What Love Is, they engage in a wild, passionate bedroom romp. That gives Cruise two 80s staples to sing, as he also belts out the Bon Jovi tune Wanted Dead Or Alive. Of course, Deadline has told you several times that Cruise was going to do the film. The most recent was the January 20th revelation that Russell Brand was in line to play Lonnie, who runs the ’80s rock club The Bourbon for owner Dennis (the role Alec Baldwin will play), with the two of them singing a duet of REO Speedwagon’s Can’t Fight This Feeling. Hathaway’s shown she has the vocal chops, so that’s not a problem. She can only take the role, though, if she is able to mesh schedules with The Dark Knight Rises. She recently landed the coveted role of Selena Kyle/Catwoman and the films will be shooting around the same time.

THR’s Borys Kit was smart to report Cruise had actually closed the deal we’ve told you about repeatedly, because it triggers every subsequent deal including the one Hathaway hopes to make on Rock of Ages. But how about The Wrap, moments ago, sending out a breathless alert hours late, after stealing THR’s information? That website, launched with the promise that it would put the trades out of business and be “the end of press release journalism,” has become an absolutely shameless aggregator masquerading as a legitimate publication. I see them swipe every bit of original reporting they find and they so rarely add anything new that I suggest they consider renaming themselves Redundant.com. They just swiped my Nicholas Hoult Jack the Giant Killer story; let’s see if they pilfer Hathaway.

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