Angelina Jolie to Play CIA Agent / Russian Spy in Movie Salt

Can’t get enough of those CIA agent spy dramas? Well, you’ve already got something to look forward to in 2010, when Columbia Pictures’ espionage thriller Salt is due to hit the big screen. There’s already been a lot of chatter about this movie, and it hasn’t even started shooting. Filming’s due to begin on Long Island, NY in March – a leak’s placed movie HQ at a former Grumman (a defense manufacturer/designer) facility in Bethpage, if you fancy a sneak peak at smoldering Angelina Jolie.

Salt was originally Edwin A. Salt, and Tom Cruise was in line to play the CIA agent star role. Angelina took an interest in the script however, and Edwin is now Evelyn (the film title castrated accordingly). So CIA officer Evelyn Salt is exposed as a Russian sleeper spy and has to outsmart and outrun the people convinced she’s on a mission to assassinate the president. Simultaneously, she’s trying to reunite with her family and expose someone else as the traitor. Liev Schreiber will be Jolie’s CIA boss and friend, and Chiwetel Ejiofor is up for a CIA counterintelligence role under the name of Peabody.

Buzz on the street is that Jolie will go undercover as a man at some point in the film. At least Edwin/Cruise get a little recompense.

Salt is being directed by Phillip Noyce and produced by Lorenzo di Bonaventura and Sunil Purkash.

photo courtesy of guardian.co.uk