Rumor Killer: Tom Cruise's Hudson Plane Crash Film

One of the hazards of writing online about film is that you receive a lot of fraudulent leads by e-mail. On my own blogs, I'm okay with running those I can't actually disprove myself – but always making sure they are labeled clearly as rumour. We all like a good rumour, I think, as long as we know that's all it is. At /Film, however, the policy is to only cover stories we can link to, where the evidence is tangible – the exceptions being the stories we generate ourselves in interview, or in a few rare cases, information from well tested sources who just wouldn't be leading us up the garden path.

One new false rumor has come to my attention, right at the point of denial. Representatives of Tom Cruise are speaking out and making it clear that, no, there are plans for a movie based on last week's Hudson River plane landing.

Here's are the best bits of the rumor as reported just a few hours ago:

Tom Cruise is hoping there will be a movie about the plane that crash-landed in the Hudson River – so he can play the pilot.The Hollywood heavyweight was so impressed with Chesley Sullenberger – who safely landed the aircraft in the New York river last week – that he wants to portray him on the silver screen."I was with people today who said, 'There's a movie in this,' and I'm thinking about that," the 46-year-old was quoted as saying.

And here's the denial:

Cruise's rep denies that a big reenactment is in the works. "There's nothing here," he told E! News.

Simple as that. What I want to know, in the comments if you will, if you'd entertain Mr. Cruise in this role.

The rumour originated at The Daily Star, a UK tabloid reputed to just make things up. This certainly won't help that reputation. Our redtops (the subset of Brit tabloids that have red mastheads) are notorious for chasing vaporous leads all the way to publication, or simply running hearsay and speculation. Most of the time, they too label the rumours as rumours, but not always. There's a history of lawsuits that indicates this.

Just for fun, here's a UK tabloid story on who the next Dr. Who companion is going to be... well, unless one of these other rumours happen to be true instead, eh?

I think you see my point.