Tom Cruise‘s “previous” filmography on IMDb speaks for itself. But his “upcoming” projects aren’t too shabby, either.
Mission: Impossible 8 is the headliner, of course, but there’s also a rumored sequel to Edge of Tomorrow (Live Die Repeat and Repeat is the working title), the “gnarly” R-rated movie The Gauntlet with Scarlett Johansson, director Alejandro G. Iñárritu’s first English-language feature since The Revenant, and, maybe most intriguely, Untitled Tom Cruise/SpaceX Project, which for the sake of brevity I’ll henceforth call Tom Cruise Space Movie. (Top Gun 3 isn’t listed, but Glen Powell recently gave a promising update.)
Here’s everything we know about Tom Cruise Space Movie, including plot details and whether there’s a release date.
Plot
In Tom Cruise Space Movie, the death-defying actor is aiming to become “the first civilian to do a spacewalk” outside of the International Space Station, according to Universal Pictures head Donna Langley. She teased to BBC in 2022 that the plot, which Cruise and director Doug Liman (Edge of Tomorrow, The Bourne Identity) pitched to her during the pandemic, “actually takes place on earth, and then the character needs to go up to space to save the day.”
Cruise will play a “down-on-his-luck guy who finds himself in the position of being the only person who could save Earth.” Been there.
But who will be the one to send Cruise to space? Unfortunately, this is where Elon Musk — and his SpaceX company — enters the picture. “Tom Cruise has said he wants to do Mission: Impossible in space. We’ve had some discussions, but I’m not sure where his mind is at,” Musk said earlier this year, seemingly conflating the Mission: Impossible franchise with this stand-alone film. There haven’t been any updates on SpaceX’s involvement in years, however.
Earlier this year, Cruise announced a partnership with Warner Bros., but Universal will foot the reported $200 million bill for his adventures in space.
Cruise could earn somewhere between $30 million and $60 million, according to insiders. This would cover his services as a producer and star, and also be comprised of significant first-dollar gross participation over a windfall up front… The inherent marketing value around a global event like this is obvious. Similar to the historic launch of SpaceX’s Dragon crew vessel, the entire world will watch as Cruise is rocketed into space, forcing natural curiosity around the results. The stakes are also high from a filmmaking standpoint. As one person familiar with the project put it, “you can’t be sure what you’re going to get up there, and you have one shot to do it.”
There haven’t been many updates lately because Cruise has been focused on Mission: Impossible 8, and there’s always a chance the project could be scrapped. But in 2023, he told Variety, “We’ve been working on it diligently and we’ll see where we go.” Hopefully where no actor has gone before.
Cast
So far, the cast is Tom Cruise and… that’s it. Maybe it could be an Edge of Tomorrow reunion with Emily Blunt?
Release Date
Tom Cruise Space Movie does not have a release date…
Trailer
… or a trailer. So, instead, here’s the insane opening to Austin Powers in Goldmember, featuring Cruise as Austin Powers and Gwyneth Paltrow as Dixie Normous (and, uh, Kevin Spacey as Dr. Evil, emphasis on evil).
