Last year, Tom Cruise went a bit sequel crazy and began talking about revisiting everything from Top Gun to Jack Reacher. Now, word has come via Deadline that work on one such sequel, a follow-up to the underperforming but highly regarded Edge of Tomorrow, is underway with two new writers and a director.
Christopher McQuarrie, who co-wrote the original, will take over the director’s chair from Doug Liman. McQuarrie is quite familiar with calling the shots for Cruise, as the pair have worked together on Jack Reacher and Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation. They’ll next team up for the sixth M:I film, currently working under the title M:I 6 – Mission Impossible and set to lens this summer.
Stepping in to pen the screenplay are Joe Shrapnel and Anna Waterhouse (Race, The Grey Man). McQuarrie will undoubtedly work closely with the duo to help make the sequel more marketable than its predecessor. “Edge of Tomorrow was incredibly difficult to market,” the filmmaker told Uproxx last year. “From the look of the film … to the title of the film … whether it was [the name of the source material] All You Need is Kill or Edge of Tomorrow. But the humor in the film took a good 35 minutes to really dawn on you – the movie really sneaks up on you and takes this sudden left turn. The movie didn’t have the moments that a trailer needs to tell you, ‘This is the experience you’re going to have.'”
Interestingly, the creator of the original manga, All You Need is Kill, recently announced plans for a sequel. It’s unlikely this will impact the film, however, as the Edge of Tomorrow 2 story is said to have come from Cruise himself. Whether or not the movie actually enters production is yet to be seen. The original film barely cracked $100 million at the US box office, though it topped $370 million worldwide and did well on home release. With Warner Bros. re-examining the types of films it gives the greenlight, a lot is likely to depend on Shrapnel and Waterhouse’s script, as well as whether or not Cruise’s original co-star, Emily Blunt, would be game to return.
