We're less than a month and a half away from finding out whether United Artists, under the not-so-watchful gaze of chief executive Tom Cruise, and very watchful gaze of co-owners MGM, will sink or float with their bankrolled Valkyrie. A vanity project starring Mr. Cruise about Col. Claus Schenk von Stauffenberg, who tried to kill Hitler, Valkyrie has been plagued with trouble since Tom Cruise was announced as the star of a film about German World War II heroes.

So far, things haven't looked great. Nazi extras are suing left and right, it's rumored to not have much of an audience market, the release date is being pushed around more than a reporter looking for an exclusive about Mr. Cruise's ties with Scientology. As much as anything in Hollywood can rest on one blockbuster, the fate of United Artists does so on Valkyrie.

And you know what? It just might work out for those crazy kids after all.

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Despite news that this holiday season will "be fucked" for movies, Tom Cruise's Valkyrie is a standout since it is now all but guaranteed to bomb. Waah waah, we're all in the same, sinking boat. At least Cruise has it coming to him.

So after the jump, some reasons why there is less hope for United Artist's success than Claus von Stauffenberg's of killing Hitler:

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Though MGM is dumping all their distribution for Weinstein films back on Harvey's lap, the studio may finally be seeing some pay-out for their co-ownership in United Artists. With Tom Cruise at the helm after partner Paula Wagner left, there's been some nail-biting to see whether or not UA would actually produce any films; so far, the only thing they've managed to get out recently was Lion for Lambs, and that was what? A year ago?

And despite promises of $500 million from Merrill Lynch, Cruise seems to be just sitting on his studio's pile of money, twiddling his thumbs and pushing around the release date of his ego project, Valkyrie, based on the life would-be Hitler assassin, Claus von Stauffenberg.

So MGM is smart to be nervous with Cruise leading the charge at UA, which is why they rushed out this trailer for Valkyrie before word got around about the MGM/Weinstein split-up:

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Just because Paula Wagner jumped ship doesn't mean everyone gets to: Merrill Lynch's quick buyout/merger/whatever to Bank of America will not affect the $500 million the bank promised for funding to Tom Cruise's United Artists.

“The terms are set and will not change. All of the funds are available to UA,” claimed an MGM studio exec with little to no sarcasm, despite the fact that the money's barely been touched since Cruise took over with Wagner at two years ago.

Merill Lynch might actually be in trouble should Tom Cruise and his vanity project studio quit trying to market Vaklyrie for the umpteenth time and actually start making movies.

Eleven actors portraying Nazis in Tom Cruise's dead-before-it-opens vehicle Valkyrie are suing United Artists for an accident last summer where the anti-Semitic reenactors literally fell off the back of a truck during shooting. This will fall firmly on Cruise's shoulders since he owns all of UA now, though if he's anything in real life like his cameo as a ruthless producer in Tropic Thunder, he deserves every single complaint from the Hitler Youth.

The accolades for Tom Cruise's brief cameo in Tropic Thunder last week were followed by even louder backlash against the once-admired-now-ridiculed star. Mr. Scientology's last big number was Lion for Lambs, the dismal think-piece propped up by Cruise's own company United Artists. The fact that his partner at UA, Paula Wagner, just quit five days ago isn't helping matters. So you would think Cruise would finally, mercifully, vanish into the background noise like so many other mediocre celebrities, at least until his lost his back fat. Mais non, quel dommage:

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Poor Suri Cruise, she is going to grow up into a demasculinized household, where mommy and daddy have the same haircut, and daddy is always throwing hissy fits about how hard it is for a man to have a career nowadays. Ugh. Why are people always treating him like a piece of meat?! And now his partner at United Artists, Paula Wagner, is bailing on him?! It's not fair, Katie!!

Wagner's departure is only one of several blows Cruise's star has dealt him recently; Valkyrie's release date was changed again, proving that his own studio — which he runs — has no idea how to market him, now that his celebrity weirdness has totally overshadowed any sort of acting skillz he may once have had. The Nazi flick, originally slotted for 2008, was pushed forward to Feb. 2009, and now is back to being slated for December of this year. Blah, no amount of preview hype is going to convince anyone to see the movie, which will inevitably involve Cruise hamming it up at his most hammiest. And wearing an eyepatch. And let's not forget the scandal that blew up when the Germans got furious about a Scientologist playing Claus von Stauffenberg, failed Hitler assassin and national hero.

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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.

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]

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.