Happily for Sony, not only did they manage to find a new director in plenty of time, they bagged themselves an Oscar-winner to boot! Professional typo-generator Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck was the man in question, with the director signing on for his first project since the gong-hoarding The Lives Of Others arrived back in 2006.

However, given The Tourist’s troubled history, it was never going to be that straightforward, and sure enough, von Donnersmarck had only been in situ for a matter of weeks before leaving the project citing those notorious “creative differences”.

As if that wasn’t bad enough, Sam Worthington also decided to change his mind, with the Avatar star leaving the project at the same time as his errant director. Jolie was still in place, but with no director or leading man on board, it was looking increasingly unlikely that The Tourist would ever find its way out of development hell, let alone be ready to film by January.

However, Sony had one last ace up their sleeves, and they were about to play it in a spectacular bit of casting…