Tom Cruise is still hell-bent on filming his next movie in outer space, reuniting with his Edge of Tomorrow director Doug Liman. Speaking to Variety during the Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One premiere in New York City, the actor claimed that he did not have a production date yet, adding: “We’ve been working on it diligently and we’ll see where we go.” Universal Pictures is backing the still-untitled film, with a budget of roughly $200 million (about Rs. 1,647 crore). Missing from this update are the words NASA and Elon Musk’s Space X, with whom the actor was in talks to film aboard the International Space Station, back in 2020.
The latter expressed his interest in the film, though it’s unclear if he’s still involved given the ongoing drama between Twitter and Meta’s Threads. But before Cruise zooms off into space, he still needs to film Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part Two, the potential finale of his long-running espionage franchise. Writer-director Christopher McQuarrie confirmed in the interview that work on the sequel will resume as soon as they’re done with the press tour for Part 1.
On their way back to the UK, the filmmaker intends to make a stop for location scouting, adding that he’s got two whole days of vacation before he heads back to work again. The biggest draw of any Mission: Impossible film is the stunt work, which Cruise delivers in spades in his latest movie — riding a motorcycle off a cliff before safely parachuting down to another train fight sequence, which tasked the crew with building their own practical model from scratch.
Circling back to the space movie, Cruise’s feature-length film will no longer be the first one to be shot in outer space. That feat was achieved by a Russian space drama called The Challenge — released in Russian cinemas in April — which followed a doctor forced to go into space to perform surgery on an injured cosmonaut. It was filmed in orbit for nearly two weeks on a reported budget of 1.555 billion rubles (about Rs. 105 crore) and earned 1 billion rubles (about Rs. 91 crore) at the regional box office, as of May. It’s unclear whether the film will ever receive a wide release. Meanwhile, Cruise previously narrated the short documentary Space Station 3D — the first IMAX 3D production in space — which is one of several documentaries that have been shot in space.
Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One — out today in theatres worldwide — pits Cruise’s IMF agent Ethan Hunt on a globe-trotting mission to prevent a bioweapon from falling into the wrong hands, as dark forces from his past start closing in. Reuniting with his allies field agent Benji Dunn (Simon Pegg), hacker Luther Stickell (Ving Rhames), and former MI6 agent Ilsa Faust (Rebecca Ferguson), Hunt is now stuck at a crossroads, as he struggles to prioritise his mission over the people around him. New additions to the franchise include Hayley Atwell (Agent Carter) as the pickpocketing frenemy Grace, alongside Pom Klementiff (Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3) and Esai Morales (Titans) as the antagonists.
Currently, there is no release window for Cruise’s space-set movie. Meanwhile, you can check out Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One, now playing in theatres worldwide.
