There’s no stopping Tom Cruise on his seemingly impossible mission to save the state of movies. His most recent move is a deal with Warner Bros. to develop more original and franchise films, a departure from his unofficial relationship with Paramount, the distributor of Top Gun: Maverick and the Mission: Impossible franchise.
It’s a monumental deal that works well for both parties. Warner Bros. gains a movie star at a time when every decision it makes garners controversy, and Cruise gains a new partner after growing tensions with Paramount. But the most interesting implications are the projects that suddenly seem feasible, including a follow-up to one of Cruise’s most underrated sci-fi blockbusters.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, Warner Bros. film studio heads Michael De Luca and Pam Abdy went into initial meetings with Cruise with a clear project in mind: a follow-up to the sci-fi time loop thriller Edge of Tomorrow, released by the studio in 2014.
Calling a potential sequel “hotly anticipated” would be an understatement. In 2015, a mere year after release, co-writer (and Cruise’s consistent collaborator) Christopher McQuarrie told Collider, “We have the idea for the sequel locked and loaded.” In 2016, potential director Doug Liman fanned the flames further, telling IGN, “It’s going to revolutionize how people make sequels. It really will.”
That’s a bold claim, but a combination of delays and conflicting schedules has kept Edge of Tomorrow 2 from moving forward despite both Cruise and co-star Emily Blunt being interested in donning their exoskeletons again (though Blunt joked to Deadline last summer that she “didn’t know if her back could take it”).
But with this new deal, we may just see Edge of Tomorrow 2 finally get the treatment it deserves. Cruise has to finish Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning Part Two first, but Edge of Tomorrow may still find a way onscreen in the interim. In the court documents for a 2022 lawsuit between Warner Bros. and Village Roadshow Pictures, it was revealed an Edge of Tomorrow TV series was in the works, although it’s unclear what the current status of the project is.
Tom Cruise is always going to be involved in multiple blockbuster franchises, but a newfound relationship with Warner Bros. could provide both parties with some much-needed scheduling flexibility. And maybe, just maybe, Warner Bros. could finally get another sci-fi blockbuster to rival its success with Dune. As Edge of Tomorrow taught viewers, you just have to keep trying.
