Valkyrie is a 2008 his­tor­i­cal thriller film di­rect­ed by Bryan Singer and star­ring Tom Cruise. The film is based on the Ju­ly 20 plot of Ger­man army of­fi­cers to as­sas­si­nate Adolf Hitler and marks the re-​team­ing of Singer and pro­duc­er/screen­writ­er Christo­pher Mc­Quar­rie. Cruise will por­tray the lead­er of the plot, Colonel Claus von Stauf­fen­berg. Cruise's cast­ing caused con­tro­ver­sy among Ger­man politi­cians and mem­bers of Stauf­fen­berg's fam­i­ly due to the ac­tor's prac­tice of Sci­en­tol­o­gy, though Ger­man news­pa­pers and film­mak­ers gave sup­port to the film to spread glob­al aware­ness of von Stauf­fen­berg's at­tempt­ed plot. The film­mak­ers of Valkyrie ini­tial­ly had dif­fi­cul­ty set­ting up film­ing lo­ca­tions in Ger­many, but they were lat­er giv­en lee­way to film in lo­ca­tions per­tain­ing to the film's sto­ry, such as Berlin's his­toric Bendlerblock. The re­lease date for Valkyrie has changed nu­mer­ous times, in­clud­ing a brief move to Febru­ary 14, 2009. Af­ter sev­er­al pos­i­tive test screen­ings, the film's re­lease was moved up to De­cem­ber 26, 2008.