Remember Tom Cruise’s cocky, vulgar, athletic turn as Les Grossman at the MTV Movie Awards? Now Paramount says there’s a Grossman movie in the works.
Yes, the same studio that brought you Tropic Thunder a couple years ago, where Grossman chewed out Ben Stiller, issued an announcement late Wednesday that the “Untitled Les Grossman” project was looking to cast Cruise in the starring role.
The press release also had a little fun with the fictional Grossman biography: “Grossman, best known as a mega producer, has most recently mentored talents such as Rob Pattinson and Taylor Lautner. In 2008, Grossman was introduced to the masses by Stiller in the comedy Tropic Thunder where the famed producer had a cameo playing himself.”
Yesterday’s announcement revealed the larger marketing hook for Sunday’s awards. Both Paramount and MTV are owned by Viacom. By using Sunday’s platform to resurrect a character that’s been AWOL for almost two years, the company stoked enough interest to then launch the film project. Smart business all around.
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