Friday February 16, 2001

Riding a wave of acclaim for is work in the gritty war drama "Tigerland," Irish actor Colin Farrell is set to co-star with Tom Cruise in Steven Spielberg's "Minority Report."

Variety reports that Farrell is in final talks to take over a role originally intended for Matt Damon in the film, based on a story by author Philip K. Dick.

Dick's stories "Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep?" and "We Can Remember It For You Wholesale" were previously transformed by Hollywood into "Blade Runner" and "Total Recall".

In "Minority Report", Cruise plays a police investigator in the future, who heads a special division that tracks down people who are destined to kill, based on a technology that predicts lethal personality types.

Cruise's character discovers that he is being hunted by another cop (Farrell) in a similar pre-emptive strike, for a murder that hasn't happened yet.

Damon dropped out of the project after delays caused by Spielberg's health problems (which resulted in the removal of a kidney), numerous screenplay rewrites, and the director's decision to make "A.I." prior to "Minority Report," Variety said.

The report said Farrell became the leading candidate for the part after Damon split, but then he committed to co-star with Edward Norton in director Gregory Hoblit's "Hart's War." Production on that WWII prison-camp drama began two weeks ago, and is to finish in early May.

Spielberg wanted Farrell badly enough that he signed him for "Minority Report," conditional on his work on "Hart's War" finishing on time. Variety said the current schedule will see Farrell going from the "Hart's War's" set in Prague to "Minority Report," where work would continue through June, with the actors strike scheduled to kick in June 30.

Farrell has also completed work on Joel Schumacher's "Phone Booth," a thriller which takes place entirely inside a telephone booth.