Cruise and Kidman Come Together Before Divorce

July 31 -- Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman will reportedly make their first joint public appearance on Aug. 7 to promote Kidman's new movie, The Others, just one day before their marriage officially ends.

Thanks to a legal step called "bifurcation," which was approved today in a Los Angeles court, their divorce will be granted before they've hashed out issues such as how to divvy up money, property, and child custody. A trial-setting conference, in which the remaining messy issues of the high-profile split will be addressed, is set for Oct. 4.

Despite the fact that the two now lead totally separate lives, the New York Daily News reports that they're opting to both appear at the premiere of The Others, which Cruise produced.

Gossip columnists and photogs are licking their lips; the glamorous ex-couple has not been seen together in public since their separation in February. At the top of the speculation list is whether Cruise's newly acknowledged girlfriend, Penélope Cruz, will be on hand.

Cruise and Kidman also split up a pre-booked vacation in the Fiji Islands. Their back-to-back sojourns became a media feeding frenzy when it was learned that Russell Crowe was vacationing there the same week as Kidman — he was only there to attend her sister Antonia's birthday party, goes the official story — followed by Cruise showing up the next week, allegedly with Cruz.

Still, Cruz might pop up to support Alejandro Amenabar, the director of The Others, who directed her in the Spanish movie Open Your Eyes, the pic that is being reworked as Vanilla Sky, during the filming of which her romance with Cruise reportedly began.

Kidman Still in Doghouse Over Dogville?In other Kidman news, the furor over her negotiations to star in Lars Von Trier's Dogville hasn't died down yet. According to MSNBC's Jeannette Walls, Swedish actor Stellan Skarsgård (Good Will Hunting, Breaking the Waves) was quoted in the Swedish-language newspaper Expressen as saying, "It feels nice to be rid of her," when it looked like negotiations with Kidman had fallen through.