Tom Cruise will “hopefully” become “the first civilian to do a spacewalk” outside of the International Space Station when he blasts off to space to shoot a new action movie with director Doug Liman. Donna Langley, the head of Universal Pictures, teased as much during a recent BBC interview. Universal is backing the Tom Cruise space project, which reportedly carries a budget in the $200 million range. While it was already known the movie would shoot scenes on the ISS, Langley said the plan is to also have Cruise perform a spacewalk.
“Tom Cruise is taking us to space. He’s taking the world to space. That’s the plan,” Langley confirmed to the BBC. “We have a great project in development with Tom, that does contemplate him doing just that. Taking a rocket up to the space station and shooting and hopefully being the first civilian to do a spacewalk outside of the space station.”
Langley revealed that while the movie will send Cruise to space, it “actually [mostly] takes place on earth, and then the character needs to go up to space to save the day.” The Universal chairwoman described Cruise’s character as “a down-on-his-luck guy who finds himself in the position of being the only person who could save Earth.”
Liman and Cruise previously collaborated on films such as “Edge of Tomorrow” (2014) and “American Made” (2017). Further plot details about the duo’s space movie are being kept under wraps, although they are working with both NASA and Elon Musk’s SpaceX company.
No Hollywood studio has ever filmed a narrative feature film in space before.
“When a producer proposes something crazy to you, like, let’s try to shoot a movie in outer space, and NASA and SpaceX sign on, and Tom Cruise signs on...you’re just a little bit more receptive,” Liman told Thrillist last year about boarding the project.
Sources previously told Variety the film’s production budget has been set at $200 million.
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.