I just posted this Tom Cruise MTV Movie Awards video promo last week, in which Tom’s Les takes a shot at a young Tom Cruise which led me to openly wonder whether I should have even been aware that the MTV Movie Awards still existed. Alas, Tom Cruise doing these Les Grossman promos is almost enough to get me to start paying attention.  Note that I said, almost. I don’t think I have seen an MTV Movie Awards show in its entirety in a decade, if ever.  Still, getting Cruise to send up Twilight luminaries Robert Pattison (pretty funny) and Taylor Lautner (not as much) is a brilliant marketing move, something that the block M has been pretty good at throughout the years. So here are the latest videos from Tom’s super Hollywood movie mogul. I think they’re funny enough to post and as I said before, I respect Cruise for doing this and at least attempting to stay relevant to the younger generation.

Could Cruise have a possible full-length spin-off with this character?  Hell, MacGruber got made.  I am interested to see how well the upcoming Mr. and Mrs. Smith knockoff Knight and Day does for him, as I think it might be one of his last gasps at being a big time star. It better at least hammer on the similarly themed Killers, just sayin’. Now I have to go wash my hands and check to see if I got my “hood pass” revoked for posting anything with Pattison and Lautner in the title.  Sellout. “Get back, you don’t know me like that.” Enjoy.

ScreenDaily reports that Robert Pattinson and Nicole Kidman have signed on to star in the UK production, Bel Ami. Renowned UK theatre directors Declan Donnellan and Nick Ormerod are co-directing a film for the first time, stepping outside of their acclaimed Cheek By Jowl theater company, considered one of the most influential in the world.

Bel Ami will tell the story of Guy De Maupassant (Pattinson), a 19th-century French writer, and his “erotically charged story of ambition, power and seduction.” London-based Protagonist will take on international sales for the film.

Pattinson is of course, a rising star through his teen-friendly fantasy pics beginning with Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire and presumably ending with the conclusion of the Twilight saga. Other detours into more sophisticated realms of drama (Little Ashes) have been less kind to the London-born 23-year old actor. I suspect this will be a make-or-break kind of role for the kid in terms of how he is going to evolve from his current heartthrob status.

Kidman, meanwhile, who was recently tapped to play the first true-life transsexual in Tomas Alfredson’s The Danish Girl, will tackle comparatively slight material here as a presumable object of desire for Pattinson’s Guy De Maupassant.

Bel Ami is scheduled to begin filming in London and Budapest in February 2010.

Gathering the latest in film news from around the web for our Wednesday news coverage, we start with some slightly sad news that has Nicole Kidman leaving the untitled Woody Allen movie that would have paired her with Frieda Pinto, Anthony Hopkins, Josh Brolin, Antonio Banderas and Naomi Watts. I enjoy Kidman as an actress quite a bit, so hope Woodrow can find an ample replacement, since there aren’t many that can fill her shoes, IMO. [Frieda Pinto Fan]

There are images of Puff Daddy aka P.Diddy, from an upcoming Forgetting Sarah Marshall spin-off, Get Him To The Greek with Russell Brand, Jonah Hill, and Colm Meaney. [Just Jared] Why is there a spin-off for a movie that wasn’t funny in the first place? Sometimes people/things become media darlings for one reason or another, and the FSM script was just that. I still have no idea why.

[Beyond Hollywood] has info on Robert Pattison signing on to join Hugh Jackman and Rachel Weisz for Unbound Captives. There are interesting bits about actor and now director Madeleine Stowe who wrote the script years ago and hoped to play Weisz’s role in the gunslinging film but studios balked. Turnabout is fair game, years later.

Comic book adaptations continue to be the biggest trend in Tinseltown with Dark Horse Comic’s Secret next in line for adaptation at Universal. I’d be lying if I said I have ever heard of this one, a horror graphic novel, so clue me in if you know anything about it. [Atomic Comics]

By the power of Grayskull, there will be a new He-Man adaptation after all (at least it’s being written) with Evan Daugherty taking the reins for Grayskull. [Shakefire] This could be a trip down memory lane for me or a wasted sperm like Transformers is now. Hoping for a least a line drive double, but we’ll see.

And while Star Trek broke IMAX records this past weekend, complaints came in (including one from our own contradicting Prod Son, who can wear a fake shoe but not see a fake IMAX movie) about the authenticity of some of those IMAX experiences.  And as any good company does, they listen, and seek to repair any wrongdoing done, as reported by [THR].  They can’t control what some cinemas are claiming as IMAX, so good news on their part, now go get those IMAX tickets.  As many as you  can!

Robert Pattison, the Twilight star and vampire look-a-like (Yes, dude needed no make-up for Twilight…he is spot on for a vampire sans the cake), is officially ready to blow.  While he had already shot the films Little Ashes and How To Be, he catches fire with co-star Rosario Dawson, leading the way in the upcoming Parts Per Billion.  MTV Movies Blog hits us with this:

Directed by newcomer Brian Horiuchi, “Billion” tells the story of three couples (including Pattinson and Thirlby) dealing with the same reality-shaking event that threatens to tear them apart. Pattinson will shoot “Billion” before he reports for duty on the “Twilight” sequel “New Moon,” and the film is expected to be released in late 2009/early 2010.

Billion also stars Olivia Thirlby, who was very solid in Juno and The Wackness as well as the long in the tooth, Dennis Hopper.  Robert is not in a bad spot at all.  The guy is 22 years old and on the brink of stardom with all of these projects.  Will he capitalize?  Are you rooting for him?  Holla.