Damon Heading Up Bureau; Cruise for President?

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Damon Heading Up Bureau; Cruise for President?

Thu., Mar. 5, 2009 12:15 PM PST by Josh Grossberg

Jason Boland/Universal Studios

Matt Damon is turning heads, not breaking them. How 'bout them apples?

Per Variety, the A-lister has signed on to star in The Adjustment Bureau, a sci-fi love story about a charming congressman who tries to figure out the sinister forces that are imperiling his relationship with a beautiful ballerina. Bourne Ultimatum scribe George Nolfi will make his directorial debut on the flick.

Damon will start shooting The Adjustment Bureau once he wraps work on Clint Eastwood's apartheid drama The Human Factor. Nolfi is also working on the script for the fourth Jason Bourne flick for helmer Paul Greengrass.

Elsewhere on the casting couch, Dakota Fanning may be a runaway, Tyler Perry takes two, and Tom Cruise is—get this—gearing up for the presidency.

• Cruise is reportedly considering The 28th Amendment for his next project. The drama will be directed by Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck, his first movie since winning the Best Foreign-Language Academy Award for 2006's The Lives of Others. The erstwhile Top Gunner would graduate to the Oval Office, playing a president who discovers a secret, all-powerful cabal seeking to assassinate him.

• Fanning is in talks to play lead singer Cheri Currie in The Runaways, a biopic of the late '70s all-girl rock band costarring Kristen Stewart as Joan Jett.

• Hot on the success of Madea Goes to Jail, Perry has sealed a deal with Lionsgate to write, direct and star in two new films. The first, I Can Do Bad All By Myself, will costar Taraji P. Henson (The Curious Case of Benjamin Button), begins shooting this month and is based on Perry's stage play. The other flick is Why Did I Get Married Too, a sequel to 2007's Why Did I Get Married.

• The View s Sherri Shepherd will be moonlighting as the star of her own comedy pilot for Lifetime loosely based on her oddball family life.

• Morris Chestnut has been cast as one of the leads in ABC's upcoming V, a reimagining of the 1980s sci-fi cult series. He'll play the boyfriend of a Homeland Security agent with a big secre—he's one of the alien lizard people.

• Darryl "D.M.C." McDaniels of Run-D.M.C. fame is set to MC The Kings of Rap, a new Idol-esque reality series seeking to find rappers whose music has a positive message.