Jolie earns her big-bucks 'Salt'

Angelina Jolie as a CIA operative on the run in "Salt."  (Courtesy:  Columbia Pictures)

Something wonderful (if you ask me) this way comes.

When Angelina Jolie hits movie screens July 23 as CIA operative Evelyn Salt, she'll be breaking the glass ceiling on two barriers; star salaries for women and, more importantly, Hollywood's "good old boys" club.

"Salt," according to an item posted on the Hollywood Reporter Web site, "was written to star a man -- no less than Tom Cruise."

Combine that with a reported $20 million payday, and that should be enough to keep the actress-humanitarian/Brad Pitt significant other solvent for a while.

Sez the Hollywood Reporter piece by Jay A. Fernandez:  "The National Organization for Women should send Angelina Jolie a nice cheese basket (or vice versa)."

"'It's definitely unusual that a female has become an action star,' 'Salt' producer Lorenzo di Bonaventura told the Hollywood Reporter.  "But it's a funny thing. She's not a female action star; she's an action star. She's really the first female to transcend gender. I don't think it's occurred before."

This is no accident.  Jolie first got my attention when she held her own with John Cusack, Cate Blanchett and future (and now former) husband Billy Bob Thornton in the offbeat comic-drama "Pushing Tin" back in 1999.

That was an ensemble piece.  But Jolie pushed herself to center stage and soon broke into the action-star slot, which had been primarily geared for male star hunks.

"In the past 10 years, she has starred in five action-dominated films that have averaged $124 million in domestic grosses. Worldwide, those grosses total nearly $1.5 billion. Again, that's just her action roles -- 'Wanted' (2008), 'Mr. & Mrs. Smith' (2005), 'Lara Croft Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life' (2003), 'Lara Croft: Tomb Raider' (2001) and 'Gone in 60 Seconds' (2000)," the Hollywood Reporter piece points out.

During an interview for the first "Lara Croft" actioner in 2001, when Jolie was in action-star transition mode, she kiddingly (I think) challenged me to a fistfight.

All I did was ask Jolie if she thought Lara Croft runs like a girl.