The Tourist is that most troublesome of Hollywood beasts, an English-language remake of an existing foreign film. If alarm bells are ringing at the prospect of another Vanilla Sky-esque waste of time, it probably won’t help to know that the original was only released as recently as 2005!

A French thriller starring Sophie Marceau, Anthony Zimmer follows a notorious career criminal in his attempts to shrug off the attentions of the world’s police by recruiting a former lover to entrap a stranger, and thus convince the authorities he’s the man they’re after.

A critical success, the film was nonetheless a commercial flop, putting less than a million bums on seats during the entirety of its French release. At least there shouldn’t be too many people complaining if the remake falls short of the original…

With Lasse Hallstom’s name long having been attached to the project, Sony broke cover back in 2008, announcing that British TV director Bharat Nalluri would be behind the camera. More or less an unknown in Hollywood, Nalluri has racked up an impressive roster of credits in British telly, having directed episodes of Spooks, Hustle and Life On Mars.

But if making the step up to Hollywood director wasn’t already daunting enough, it soon looked as though Nalluri would be pointing his lens at the most famous actor on the planet…