After the tremendous, record-breaking success of Paramount’s sequel Top Gun: Maverick, did we really expect Oscar-nominated and Golden Globe-winning action actor Tom Cruise to coast on his high-speed laurels? No, but we also didn’t anticipate that his next target would be the cosmos. The head of Universal Pictures, Donna Langley, has her sights set on Paramount’s record-breaking film experiences in the hopes of bringing Tom Cruise into the spotlight, as reported by BBC News. How can you surpass physical acts you’ve already performed, like hanging from an aeroplane for a one-minute film honouring movie theatres when you’re one of the most ambitious action performers working in the industry today? Cruise, having just broken the sound barrier in his role as top naval pilot Maverick in Joseph Kosinski’s Top Gun sequel, is now aiming to burst through the Earth’s atmosphere. Cruise is known to be filming on location at the International Space Station for an unannounced Universal movie with a projected budget of over $200 million.
Langley gave an interview to BBC News in which she hinted that they were trying to push the edge even further, adding that the studio’s ambition was for Cruise to be “the first civilian to perform a spacewalk,” a distinction that has since gone to an American.
With her efforts, Langley, “the first British woman to lead a major American film company,” is making sure that Universal stays in the spotlight. Cruise’s boundless ambition and love of her fans are exactly what the film business needs to cash in on in this brave new world, and if that means taking the stunts to the stars, then be it. “Let’s go on an intergalactic adventure with Tom Cruise at the helm. He plans to launch humanity into space. So far, so good. Tom and I are working together on an awesome project right now, and it includes a scenario in which he does just that. Hopefully being the first citizen to undertake a spacewalk outside of the space station by taking a rocket there and firing from there.”
Director Doug Liman, who previously collaborated with Cruise on the critically acclaimed Edge of Tomorrow, is at the helm of this project; rumours have it that the two may work together again on the impending sequel Live Die Repeat and Repeat.
Since filming has just begun, little specifics about the story have been revealed beyond the fact that “the character needs to travel up to space to rescue the day.” As reported by Variety, Cruise will portray “a down-on-his-luck individual who finds himself in the situation of being the only person who could save Earth,” a la Bruce Willis in the immensely epic 1998 tearjerker Armageddon. With all of the Mission: Impossible films under his belt, Cruise’s Ethan Hunt is more than ready to take on the world’s greatest challenges.
With the help of NASA and Elon Musk’s SpaceX, Cruise and Liman have become Hollywood’s first space exploration team and have the distinction of making the first ever “narrative feature film” to film in outer space. After being approached by Universal Pictures to direct this film, Liman told Thrillest, “You’re just a little bit more receptive when a producer pitches something ridiculous to you, like, let’s attempt to make a movie in outer space, and NASA and SpaceX sign on, and Tom Cruise signs on.”
A release date has not been announced.