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Cruise's Valkyrie Chemically Unenhanced

Mon., Oct. 8, 2007 6:14 PM PDT by Natalie Finn

Maybe filming on an ancient Indian burial ground would have been easier.

The Sturm und Drang swirling around the production of Tom Cruise's latest film, the World War II sabotage thriller Valkyrie, got even Sturmier this weekend when it was discovered that nighttime footage shot a couple of weeks ago at the German Defense Ministry was virtually unusable.

According to the Hamburg newspaper Tagesspiegel, the film was irreversibly damaged after being treated with the wrong chemical during development.

"I have never heard of a case where film is soaked in the wrong liquid without anyone noticing the mistake," a suspicious member of the production team told the daily.

But Colin Ullman, a spokesman for the company that delivered the film, said they were told that the postproduction firm, the well-regarded Arri Munich, reported troubles with the negative development.

"The images were wiped away," Ullman told the national newspaper Bild.

Regardless of where the trouble occurred or in what substance the film was accidentally doused, the footage needs to be reshot. And this time, the government's approval was forthcoming, and the do-over is already a go.

Earlier this summer, Cruise and production partner Paula Wagner's United Artists shingle had to do some major finessing with the powers that be to get permission to film at the Bendlerblock memorial site, which is located within the Defense Ministry and is usually verboten to camera crews.

Bendlerblock is the site where Colonel Claus Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg, played by Cruise in the film, and his coconspirators in a plot to assassinate Hitler were executed after nearly rubbing out the Nazi leader with a briefcase bomb in 1944. The scheme's code name was Operation Valkyrie.

Germany's finance ministry, which is responsible for okaying film shoots within the country, relented last month after extensive talks with UA and director Bryan Singer. The filmmakers satisfactorily proved they are "aware of the particular significance" the Bendlerblock holds for the German people, ministry spokesman Thomas Raabe said.

In June, however, a conservative parliament member posted on her blog a statement from Defense Minister Franz-Josef Jung, in which he vowed that Valkyrie wouldn't be welcome in Germany at all due to its star's religious beliefs. The European nation views Scientology as a type of cult that exists to make money, on par with neo-Nazism.

The ministry quickly attempted to clarify Jung's remarks, saying it was only the Bendlerblock that was off limits and that Cruise was perfectly welcome.

Meanwhile, the botched-film incident is only one in a series of mishaps to plague the production, even after the proper permits had been secured. Last month, 11 extras standing in for German soldiers were injured when they fell out of a moving military truck in Berlin.

The production company was proven to be not at fault, however, after an inspection found the vehicle was safe and that it was the extras who failed to properly secure the truck's side covering before they set off.

A UA rep couldn't be reached for comment on whether Valkyrie, which also stars Kenneth Branagh, Tom Wilkinson, Bill Nighy and Eddie Izzard, is still on track for its slated June 2008 release.