On Monday, Tom Cruise signed a new deal with Warner Bros that would allow him to produce and star in movies for WB. The fact that this was called a “non-exclusive deal” had me wondering about the whole thing.
“I’m not sure what [the Warners deal] is,” says a competitor to THR. “It sounds like more of a David Zaslav headline than a movie.”
You see, Cruise is currently shooting the next ‘Mission: Impossible’ for Paramount, and ‘Top Gun 3’ isn’t out of the question either with the studio. However, a new THR report claims that “tensions have gotten higher” between Cruise and Paramount — related to budget and collaboration.
This seems to have to do with “Mission: Impossible Dead Reckoning – Part One,” released last year, which, sources say, lost “north of $25 million.” Cruise is no longer the Godly figure Paramount once believed him to be, and they’re not as willing to meet his budgetary demands.
Now, what films could Cruise possibly make at Warner Bros? Sources say the Warner deal includes a greenlight on a yet to be identified project, maybe a thriller or an action movie. If I had to guess, this could be the R-rated, “gnarly and violent” project that Christopher McQuarrie keeps talking about. That’s an option.
However, what Warner CEO David Zaslav seems to want most is to lure Cruise back for a follow-up to the 2014 film “Edge of Tomorrow”, which the studio has in development.
“Edge of Tomorrow” is the only potential Cruise IP that Warner Bros currently owns. Last August, Emily Blunt had confirmed that the script for the sequel was done and that she was ready to film it.
The film only earned $375 million at the global box-office, on a $175 million budget, but audiences eventually caught on to the film when it hit home video, as it captured a large fan base and has become a sci-fi classic. There’s a ton of potential, especially commercial, for the sequel.
Director Doug Liman has stated that “Edge of Tomorrow 2” would “revolutionize how people make sequels” and that the film would be titled “Live Die Repeat and Repeat.” Cruise’s buddy Christopher McQuarrie (“The Usual Suspects,” “Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation“) is writing the screenplay.