The 2014 high-concept action/sci-fi hybrid Edge Of Tomorrow has had a longer, more twisty road to sequelhood than most films. Warner Bros. didn’t rush to sign stars Tom Cruise and Emily Blunt or director Doug Liman for a follow-up project right out of the gate, due mostly to the fact that the alien-invasion riff on Groundhog Day underperformed terribly at the box-office, earning $100 million from domestic audiences against a $178 million budget. But little by little, positive word-of-mouth spread and the film became something of a sensation in the home-viewing markets, moving huge volume of DVDs and Blu-rays. Combine that with a robust overseas take of $270 million, and a sequel started to look like a pretty good idea. Emily Blunt told us she’d be interested, Tom Cruise had an idea for another installment, and Christopher McQuarrie had entered the conversation as a prospective director.
But today brings the exciting news that an Edge Of Tomorrow 2 is indeed happening, with creative personnel attached and everything. Deadline reports that the sequel has started to take shape, with scribes Joe Shrapnel and Anna Waterhouse (the writers behind the recent Race) on board to draw up a script. While it was once believed that co-writer McQuarrie would step in to relieve Liman of his directing duties, the writer took to Twitter today to iron out the confusion and confirm that he would not return to helm the new installment.
https://twitter.com/chrismcquarrie/status/718457322197094405
Last we checked, Liman was also engaged to direct a thriller for Amazon and the currently-delayed Channing Tatum-led X-Men spinoff movie about New Orleanian card-flinger Gambit, so where this project will fall on his to-do list has yet to be seen. And if audiences have to wait a minute for a possible Edge Of Tomorrow 2, that’s what we get for failing this movie the first time around. Citizens of America: Let us rally around our newest, most original action franchise!
