One year after ‘Valkyrie’ began production, Tom Cruise is back in the ring to shoot the final three scenes of the movie. And while it has mostly been gloom and doom for the new United Artists movie, the people that saw director Bryan ‘X-Men’ Singer’s new movie claim it is actually worth your while. “Bryan Singer is back in form,” one said.

Cruise won’t be shooting in Germany this time, but in North Africa. Cheap labor? I don’t know. But I’d understand why they wouldn’t want to go back to Germany.

It will be interesting to see how the movie does after all the negative press and Tom Cruise and United Artists’ latest flop ‘Lions for Lambs.’ Not to mention the budget, which is now rumored to top $100 million. And will Weinstein Co. release that other ‘Valkyrie’ in February 2009 too?

Are we still expecting Tom Cruise’s ‘Valkyrie’ next winter? Because during all United Artists’ startup problems, I might have missed another delay. In any case, Weinstein Co. just bought the rights to a similar German movie called ‘Operation Valkyrie,’ also about the failed assassination of Adolf Hitler.

There’s no question he picked up the rights because of the $100 million ‘Valkyrie,’ directed by Bryan ‘X-Men’ Singer. Since ‘Operation Valkyrie’ came out in 2004 and he could’ve picked up the rights for 4 years. In the German movie Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg is played by Sebastian Koch, the same role Tom Cruise has in ‘Valkyrie.’ A funny fact is, Carice van Houten stars in ‘Valkyrie’ with Cruise, while she starred with Koch in last year’s WWII drama ‘Black Book.’ And to top it all off, Koch is also her lover in real life. The coincidence of cinema.

Cory Edwards, who is currently working on ‘Hoodwinked 2: Hood vs. Evil,’ will be directing a ‘Fraggle Rock’ musical feature for TWC. Weinstein Co. has been pushing TWC to make more family orientated movies. “One of our main priorities when we first launched the Weinstein Company was to feature a broad range of family-friendly franchises like Fraggle Rock,” Weinstein said. The picture will again focus on the main characters’ interaction with humans, who they think are all aliens.

Director Cory Edwards debuted strongly with ‘Hoodwinked!’ in 2006. The animation not nearly had the high standards of a studio like Pixar or DreamWorks, but it made over $50 million in the US with a budget of just $15 million. For the sequel ‘Hoodwinked 2: Hood vs. Evil,’ Harvey Weinstein said to have doubled the budget to $30 million, still fairly low compared to its competition.