TOM CRUISE - NO SABOTAGE SUSPECTED IN LOSS OF CRUISE FOOTAGE

NO SABOTAGE SUSPECTED IN LOSS OF CRUISE FOOTAGE

A spokesperson for United Artists said Monday that the company does not suspect sabotage in a film-lab accident that resulted in the destruction of footage shot in Germany for the Tom Cruise movie Valkyrie. According to reports, key scenes filmed at the Bendlerblock memorial in Berlin, where German officers involved in an assassination plot against Hitler were executed in 1944, were ruined by lab chemicals at the Arri Munich processing plant. Although they had initially dragged their feet in issuing permits for filming at the memorial -- presumably because of protests over Cruise's affiliation with Scientology -- German authorities promptly agreed to allow the memorial to be used a second time so that the scenes could be reshot.

09/10/2007