Sean Penn is certainly getting into TV these days.

He’s about to appear in a Hulu series called “The First” in which he’ll play the first astronaut to set foot on Mars. Of course, Matt Damon’s already been there, but please don’t tell Sean that. He’ll see Matt’s farm and tent when he arrives.

But now I can tell you that a long-aborning project has come together for Penn at The History Channel. This is a mini-series about President Andrew Jackson that was supposed to be for HBO. But I’m told it’s moved to The History Channel. The famed playwright and short story writer Donald Margulies is writing the script.

Jackson was the 7th president, following John Quincy Adams, whom he defeated. He served 8 years from 1829 to 1837.

His history is marked by great ups and downs, illnesses and scandals. His presidency’s biggest and longest lasting disaster was the moving of Native Americans from their land — the Indian Removal Act– in 1830. His story is rich with horrible things that should give Sean plenty of scenery to chew on– Emmy Awards here we come!

“American Lion” is based on the book of the same name by Jon Meacham.

Tom Cruise is the biggest movie star in the world. That’s what they say.

Actually, without the “Mission Impossible” series, Cruise would not be a movie star. He is definitely not an actor who can open a film. Other than the “Mission Impossible” movies, Cruise’s films open poorly and don’t hit $100 million. “Edge of Tomorrow” just made the magic number because the studio left it in theaters until it had whiskers.

The new “MI: Fallout” made $6 million last night, and may go on to have the biggest opening weekend of all the movies in the series. But basically, Cruise’s career will now be defined historically by playing Ethan Hunt, and by doing his own stunts.

This chart is from boxofficemojo.com:

Of all the movie mega franchises, I love “Mission Impossible” the best. Lalo Schiffrin’s score is an aphrodisiac to me. And the rest may have something to do with the hero Tom Cruise as Ethan Hunt, a man of super capabilities who gets the job done. Whatever crazies animate him, he is willing and able to rescue a detonator from the edge of a rock cliff, hang from helicopters, and mess with equally crazy women.

The blond “widow” in “Mission Impossible: Fallout” makes Rebecca Ferguson’s Ilsa the picture of propriety, even when she, leather clad, races around Paris on a motorcycle in hot pursuit of Cruise and his posse: Ving Rhames’ Luther and Simon Pegg’s Benji and the nut job of a villain/ social anarchist (Sean Harris) that must lead them to the prize, three globe-like balls of Plutonium. We are saving the world here from crazies who believe, the more suffering, the greater the peace. Now I totally understand why chemical warfare on civilians is so necessary!

The director/co-writer Christopher McQuarrie addressed the packed all-media screening explaining, as if anyone did not know, that Tom Cruise does his own stunts. That introduction added to the visual pleasures at hand, but also the anxieties in that when ever Cruise jumped out of a helicopter, for example, that meant that a camera person was doing it with him only backwards. They had to hire a stuntman who knew how to take the footage but had to learn narrative techniques on the job, in multiple takes.

Cruise trained 16 hours/day for six weeks to get the required papers to man his own copter, which he did, and raced around Paris with a shattered ankle. Needless to say, he looks great doing it and is the consummate hero. Kudos, too, to Ferguson, Henry Cavill, Angela Bassett, in various places on the hero-villain spectrum, and to Alec Baldwin, who, despite always being Alec Baldwin, is just great! And the platinum blond (Vanessa Kirby, Princess Margaret to you “Crown” fans) as ambiguous morally as her hair color; though they flirt with a brush of a kiss, as if she is trying Cruise out, there’s no action here, unlike the fast pace of this 2 ½ hour film.

If only world peace were as simple as rescuing a detonator from the edge of a rock cliff!