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The news may seem somewhat anticlimactic after word surfaced last week that Tom Cruise was talking to longtime friend and occasional impersonator Ben Stiller about bolstering Cruise Industries' comedy brand (which had languished since the actor's slapstick turn as a hapless hitman unable to kill a single cab driver in Collateral) by teaming up on the kind of buddy picture for which Stiller is well known, but today the trades are ablaze with word that the two actors will indeed join forces for Fox's Hardy Men.

The plot: after years of not speaking to one another, the now-grown, legendary Hardy siblings, once hotshot coverboys for Teen Sleuth magazine, are forced by comedically expedient circumstances to reunite for One Last Case, during which a contractually mandated level of Wackiness will Ensue, demonstrating to a Cruise-weary public that the actor has, in fact, not lost his sense of humor since abducting Katie Holmes and suspiciously knocking her up. Should this initial effort fail, the two pals are also reportedly in talks for Tropic Thunder, in which Cruise might be given an even more direct way to take a playful poke at his humorless action star persona. And should that project fall through and set back Cruise's attempts to soften his image, he and producing partner Paula Wagner plan on a radical realignment of the development slate at their United Artists studio, abandoning all in-progress features to devote the entirety of their resources to remaking every film on universally beloved movie personality Will Smith's resume since 1996, a hugely expensive, last-ditch effort at making the public once again embrace Cruise.