· Universal executives are going to get Tom Cruise into a summer tentpole if it's the last thing they do. Fresh off the disintegrated At the Mountains of Madness, the studio is looking to attach Cruise to Oblivion. (Insert your own joke here.) Universal is currently the front-runner to acquire the rights to the Joseph Kosinski-directed film -- which was recently cut loose from Disney -- a "futuristic science-fiction love story that takes place in an apocalyptic future where most of the population lives in clouds above an earth surface that has been rendered for the most part uninhabitable." Sounds ambitious, and -- unlike Guillermo del Toro's now-defunct Madness -- PG-13. [Deadline]
· Speaking of Universal, the studio wants to bring the Green Day musical American Idiot to a theater near you. Milk Oscar winner Dustin Lance Black would write the script; Michael Mayer, who directed the show on Broadway, will direct. [Deadline]
· Michael Mann -- whose last movie was the overblown, overlong and over-rated Public Enemies -- has reportedly begun to focus his directorial energies on Gold, a modern-day treasure hunt movie in the vein of Treasure of the Sierra Madre. Paul Haggis showed Mann the script by Patrick Masset and John Zinman as a writing sample, and will co-produce. [Deadline]
· The adaptation of Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter needed a vampire, and Rufus Sewell was happy to offer his services. The actor will play Adam, the lead vamp in the film, and look as creepy as usual. [Variety]
· Nico Tortorella -- who may or may not die in Scream 4 this weekend -- is in talks to play the villain in the adaptation of Dean Koontz's Odd Thomas. [THR/Heat Vision]
· Paramount is getting its ass to Mars. The studio has picked up the rights to Ray Bradbury's seminal short story collection, The Martian Chronicles. Before you get too excited, note that producer John Davis is also responsible for Gulliver's Travels and Norbit. [THR/Heat Vision]