Because half of the gossip news cycle is not what is happening, but what isn’t, today’s breaking news out of the Tom Cruise-Katie Holmes camp is that the one slightly more interested in sleeping with women will not be headed to Broadway as SOME REPORTS HAVE CLAIMED! Sure, Katie Holmes will make her debut in Arthur Miller’s All My Sons, where ticket sales are nothing to boast about, but the closest Cruise will get to the Broadway stage is showing up on Katie’s opening night. He will then retreat to Hollywood, which doesn’t want him either.

Like any do-gooding multi-hundred-millionaire movie star, Hancock’s Will Smith is involved in the philanthropy scene. He’s also, as prying eyes have woefully pointed out, been involving himself with the Tom Cruise scene, which means of course that he’s basically a raving Scientologist trying to hold in his inner homo, because that’s what the cult is about, right? Back in 2004, Smith donated $20k to something called “HOPE: The Hollywood Education and Literacy Program,” which is the church’s “literary program,” where children get homeschooled and, we’re guessing, brainwashed in their formative years. Now, he and Jada have been plugging a way at their New Village Academy, a private school they’re funding that will open in December, which got the LAT treatment over the weekend. Naturally, the first word out of the school’s mouth is that it is not a Scientology facility. (Even Will and Jada still insist they aren’t of the church.) But a certain anti-Scientology crusader is casting his eye of suspicion on this educational institution, mostly because of a … goat.

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Remember this photo, at right? It was part of our item “The 2 Photo Scandals Rocking Hollywood,” which also included a possible Iron Man infringement. But this photo was at the center of Slate’s argument that United Artists may have Photoshopped a pic of Claus von Stauffenberg — who Tom Cruise plays in the ill-fated Valkyrie — to make the would-be Hitler assassin look more like the high-profile star playing him, all in an effort to appease Germans who were furious a Scientologist would be playing a national hero. Except as Slate now concludes in a correction:

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Two eyebrow-raising Hollywood scandals popped up this week, one including an actual eyebrow! Must we make Tinseltown worry about anything other than budgets and insuring Lindsay Lohan?

First up, the battle between Paramount Pictures and Marvel Entertainment and paparazzo Ronnie Adams, who snapped a photo of Robert Downey Jr. on the set of big-budet action flick Iron Man while the movie was still filming.

As producers for the big and small screen continually battle back against potential spoilers, the studio demanded Adams remove the photo from his website, where he had posted it. He refused, but they eventually got to his web host, who yanked his account.

And then … his photo resurfaced. In Iron Man.

That’s according to Adams’ lawsuit, which claims that after all its complaining, Marvel used the copyrighted photo – after removing Adams’ watermark – in a scene in the movie, showing a newspaper article headlined “Who is this Ironman.” Fiscally savvy Adams, filing suit against the studios, now wants to get remunerated for his unsolicited efforts in contributing to this “pivotal scene.”

So that’s one photo scandal. This next one features Tom Cruise and Nazis! And an eyebrow!

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The new homeowner is back filming the final scenes of Valkyrie, the flick where he wears an eye patch and tries to assassinate Adolph Hitler, despite everyone calling for the flick’s demise. Variety editor and granola blogger Peter Bart insists he’s being told it’s a “superb thriller,” but the film has already had its release date pushed back twice. It’s now set to open on Feb. 13, which happens to be Friday the 13th and Valentines Day and and Presidents’ Day weekend. That’s balls/stupidity.

Victoria Beckham, Jennifer Lopez, Brooke Shields, Sumner Redstone, Steven Spielberg, Oprah Winfrey, Gayle King, and Kirstie Alley were among the A-listers who attending TomKat’s big Beverley Hills housewarming party. Page Six, however, also spotted “all the gays, which was hilarious because Scientology ‘cures’ gays.”

But maybe, just maybe, they were just the help?

The Associated Press has finally gotten around to realizing that Tom Cruise launched his own website, at TomCruise.com, and that his camp has been busy advertising the heck out of it. (You may have seen his ads on this website.) Like Nicole Richie on MySpace, Pete Wentz on Friends Or Enemies, or Britney Spears on Britney.com, Cruise now has the power to quickly refute any of those falsehoods regularly printed about him. But that’s not the only utility for TomCruise.com!: “My hope with this site is to bring you in and share with you the fun I experience every day during the filmmaking process, from working with the script, to the making of the film through to what we finally see when we settle in our seats and the lights go down” … to watching embarrassing box office receipts for United Artists films, to chronicling his rocky relationship with Sumner Redstone, to …

Yes, last night’s American Idol finale chose David Cook as the winner, violating everything Simon Cowell said the night before about David Archuleta’s “knockout.” And yes, 12 million more people voted for Cook than Archuelta. And yes, an early Nielsen estimate pegs total viewers at 26.5 million, the shows best numbers since March, and which could beat last year’s audience of 25.3 million. But hands down, the most interesting thing about last night’s finale – and it certainly wasn’t performances by Jordin Sparks, Carrie Underwood, or any of the Top 12 contestants, or even Mike Myers’ The Love Guru tie-ins – was this Guitar Hero ad featuring Cook doing a riff on Tom Cruise in Risky Business. Yes, they made Archuleta do one too, but that was seriously awkward.

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Katie Holmes is definitely taking up residence in New York, as she’ll appear on Broadway’s All My Sons, from Arthur Miller, this fall. [People] For obvious reasons, you can expect she and Tom Cruise to be renting an apartment somewhere in this vicinity. [Photo: Flickr]

VALKYRIE STATUS UPDATE Though Tom Cruise’s problem-prone Hitler film has already been pushed back to 2009, one critic has concluded, “Valkyrie is dead.” [Times Online]

Though they parted ways in 2006, Sumner Redstone and Tom Cruise may re-join forces for a fourth Mission: Impossible. The cranky Viacom and CBS chairman, who thus runs the Paramount movie studio, says he still considers Cruise “a great actor and a good friend” (notice the degrees of acknowledgment there) and wouldn’t object to him starring in M:I4, though in the end he says he’s leaving that call to studio head Brad Gray. That’s Brad Gray, as in the guy who’s running the industry’s top studio right now, so it’s like, yeah motherfucker, he’s making the call. [AP]

Wasn’t the whole purpose of Tom Cruise’s return to Oprah to celebrate the 25th anniversary of Risky Business? Interesting, then, that the movie’s director, Paul Brickman, isn’t involved in the Oprah special. In fact, producers never even called him. And should fans be suddenly excited about a Cruise movie, too bad: DVDs of Business aren’t even available anymore.

On Oprah today, it was Oprah who was sitting on Tom’s couch. Cruise gave the talk show host a tour of his Telluride home, where they taped the interview, showing him one special area: where he and Katie lock Suri up when she’s not being photographed by magazines.

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You will look back on today’s momentous occasion – the one-for-the-history-books return of Tom Cruise to Oprah – and think of but one thing: Tom Cruise is a victim! Everybody has been out to get this cultist zealot, and all those jokes about him brainwashing Katie Holmes and inseminating her with L. Ron Hubbard’s semen have been entirely unfair to him and his family. It takes the power of Oprah to set the record straight, even if that’s where he shed his veil of normalcy to begin with. So let’s get to the defensive mechanisms:

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With a Las Vegas residency to promote, Cher suddenly stumbles upon a fond memory of her youth: boinking Tom Cruise. The sixteen year age difference did little to cool the sparks between these two after they met at a White House event, back when he was enjoying the spotlight from a breakout role in Risky Business. Oh, did we mention Risky Business is celebrating its 25th anniversary, and that Cruise is also hitting Oprah’s show for the first time in three years to promote it?

So many wonderful confluences of events!

Alas, Cher blames their filming schedules as the reason the duo never made it last, and not because two larger-than-life egos, one of them a big ‘mo, could never work.

Since Tom Cruise won’t leave us alone, we won’t leave Tom Cruise alone. So there!

As he marches toward Oprah’s broadcast for May sweeps, you’re going to need a cheat sheet about his first return to her couch since his infamous June 2005 high-jump. So what can you expect as Oprah grovels for ratings and Cruise commemorates the 25th anniversary of Risky Business?

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Tom Cruise has not been welcomed on Oprah’s couch since his infamous June 23, 2005, looney-tune appearance, which prompted an outpouring of criticism and hilarious YouTube parody videos.

But sweeps week is sweeps week, and Oprah, who’s seen her favorability and viewer ratings drop recently, isn’t immune to the pressures of pushy advertisers. Which is why she’s expected to invite Cruise back for what could be shaped as a celebration of the 25th anniversary of Cruise’s breakthrough Risky Business role. Or, with just the right about of springs in the sofa, a new height record.

Connor Cruise, son of Tom and Nicole Kidman, will make his big screen debut in Seven Pounds, playing the younger version of Will Smith.

That is: The movie biz is now a playground for Scientologists as much as it is for Jews.

Tom Cruise’s expected-to-be-terrible Valkyrie got pushed back, again, to 2009. But that doesn’t mean the movie’s trailer isn’t around for you to check out. The clip needs some updating, given that it still promises a “Summer 2008″ opening. And that crazy Scientology guy is still starring in it.

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Know what? 2009 is looking like a much better year to release that movie about the attempted assassination of Adolph Hilter. After all, there are only about seven months left in 2008, and who wants to rush such a masterpiece to theatres if the climate isn’t right?

So goes the story of United Artists’ Tom Cruise and partner Paula Wagner, who are yanking the Bryan Singer-directed Valkyrie from a 2008 release, putting a hefty amount of distance between the World World II flick and the studio’s previous release, the bomb Lions for Lambs.

If you ask MGM distribution chief Clark Woods, the decision was an obvious one: “When an opening became available for Presidents Day weekend, we seized the opportunity.” Who knew Presidents Day weekend made for such a blockbuster premiere date?

Or maybe it’s the fact that Tom Cruise knows Valkyrie is going to underperform, and he hasn’t taken care of that little matter of securing his career’s future just yet.