“I’m going to play with that as well”: Edge of Tomorrow 2 is Not a Distant Dream When the Director Knows Exactly What to Do With Tom Cruise

Tom Cruise comes with a lot of expectations and responsibilities attached to his name. The actor, who has made himself out to be a modern-day legend simply on the back of blockbuster action movies, is an A-lister for a reason. For a long time, Cruise has known exactly which path to take in order to be a star with unmatched glory.

In the years since his Top Gun fame, Cruise has given the industry a taste of every genre and the variable range of his innate skills in acting. From dangerous and charismatic in Interview With the Vampire to a psychotic assassin in Collateral, from a comical antagonist in Tropic Thunder to a cowardly time traveler in Edge of Tomorrow – he has done it all.

Now, it seems as though Tom Cruise might be up for a repeat of that last experience with a long-awaited Edge of Tomorrow sequel.

Edge of Tomorrow: A saga that demands repetition

When it comes to Tom Cruise, there’s little that makes the actor walk away from a script. The actor’s chameleon-like ability to mold himself into any role imaginable makes Cruise the star he is today. Despite being universally renowned for his Mission: Impossible franchise, there are 4 other films that have drawn an Oscar-worthy performance from him.

Although Edge of Tomorrow does not belong to one of those 4 Oscar-nominated roles of Tom Cruise, the movie has certainly stood the test of time and become a unique gem in an oversaturated sci-fi action genre. It has been a decade since the film’s release and understandably enough, the fans are still crying out for a sequel.

Co-starring Emily Blunt, Edge of Tomorrow featured an excellent plot, superb action choreography, and a mysterious enemy invader with no larger moral, ethical, or Darwinian cause behind their arrival. The film’s structure of live-die-repeat always keeps the audience on the edge of their seats and Cruise and Blunt’s pairing makes the film even more alluring than it was originally meant to be.

Edge of Tomorrow sequel is well on its way

Throughout his career spanning 45 years, Tom Cruise has been consistent in one aspect of his filmography: he never agrees to a sequel. Beyond the Mission: Impossible franchise, Cruise’s work has always been a one-stop shop with no guarantee of a prequel, sequel, or a requel in the future.

Even the Top Gun sequel was 36 years in the making and the story was a timely addition to the original movie by paving a path forward for a new generation while granting a well-meaning tribute and closure to the past. As such, having broken the no-sequel curse, a decade seems like an appropriate measure of time to pick up the long-awaited Edge of Tomorrow project with Doug Liman.

The director looks more than ready to roll, and Cruise should have nothing better to do seeing how his Mission: Impossible franchise is coming to an end, too. In an interview with Entertainment, Liman claimed:

There’s been such huge enthusiasm towards the film now that Tom and I have been able to look each other in the eye and go ‘Well what would a sequel look like?’ […] In the same way that I loved casting Maverick in American Made, and I’m aware of what people expect when they see Tom Cruise in airplanes and I wanted to play with that, I know that there’s a certain expectation when people think of sequels. So I’m going to play with that as well.

Considering how Cruise’s career has been built on his ability to decode the success factor of each script, it won’t be too long before he comes back for a second serving of the film, considering Liman’s confession about the sequel’s script being better than the original:

Tom and I sat down with Christopher McQuarrie, who was one of the writers of the original, and suddenly started hatching a story that I loved more than the original, which I never thought possible. It’s way more character-driven and more shocking in terms of what a sequel is supposed to be.

If Tom Cruise pulls this off with the Full Metal Bitch herself aka Emily Blunt beside him, the Edge of Tomorrow sequel will be a historic achievement worthy of being etched in the Hall of Fame.

Edge of Tomorrow is currently streaming on Prime Video.

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