After hearing that the Bryan Singer film Valkyrie starring Tom Cruise was going to be banned from filming in Germany because of Cruise's beliefs, we quickly found out that the real reason was they wanted to film in areas of historic sensitivity, i.e. the exact place where the German soldier Claus Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg who led the assassination attempt on Hitler was executed.

Not only that but a German Defense Ministry building is housed nearby, so you can see why they were both denied. However they weren't actually denied, according to the story that followed, until now.

The official denial has come through and it's much less of a story than the media would like you to think. No, this is really about the fact that it is an official memorial.

From the Guardian story come the words of a Finance Ministry spokesman:

"[the memorial, a] place of remembrance and mourning, would lose dignity if we were to exploit it as a film set...The adverse impact to the facility would be so grave that the request had to be denied."

Really though, there's no story here now. Originally the concern seemed to be because of Scientology, however that story was quickly laid to rest and the rumour came from outside of the official channels. This kind of thing happens all the time in films, permissions denied for filming locations, however in Valkyrie the material is extra sensitive and the star is Tom Cruise. That's the story.