 One of Jolie 's requests was to rework the third act , which originally had Salt rescue his wife and son from a coalition of villains , because she did not believe a mother would neglect her child in this kind of situation . Wimmer decided to then make Salt more crucial to the villain 's schemes , and add a sequence where Salt breaks into " a place harder than Fort Knox " – after considering Camp David , Wimmer settled on the White House . When asked if the script written for Cruise was the same for Jolie , he said " I think that it ’ s just been a continual process , obviously accelerating by changing the central character . But the ideas – the locomotive of ideas that drive the film are the same . An undercover CIA operative is accused of being a Russian mole , and has to go on the run to defend himself . That ’ s been the same since day one . The tone of the film has changed in this evolution . In the same way , I guess , as – you know – action thrillers have changed along the lines of the Bond films and the Bourne films " . 
