LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - The Oscar-nominated filmmaker behind genocide drama "Hotel Rwanda" is in talks with Columbia Pictures to direct an espionage thriller the studio has in the works as a possible star vehicle for Tom Cruise.

Columbia, a unit of Sony Corp., acquired movie rights to the Kurt Wimmer spy novel "Edwin A. Salt" in January, and the film is being developed with Cruise "in mind" to star in the title role, a studio source told Reuters on Monday.

He would play a CIA officer fingered by a defector as a Russian sleeper spy.

As first reported by show business magazine Daily Variety, the studio is in negotiations with "Hotel Rwanda" writer-director Terry George to direct "Edwin A. Salt," the source said.

George, a native of Belfast, has earned Oscar nominations for his screenwriting work on both "Hotel Rwanda," which starred Don Cheadle, and the 1993 film "In the Name of the Father," based on the true story of a man wrongly imprisoned with his father for an Irish Republican Army bombing.

According to Variety, George just finished directing "Reservation Road," which stars Joaquin Phoenix, Mark Ruffalo, Jennifer Connelly and Mira Sorvino.

Cruise recently began filming "Valkyrie," in which he plays the German army officer who led a foiled plot to assassinate Adolf Hitler during World War II.