Report: Tom Cruise’s SpaceX NASA Movie Scrapped

Back in 2020, Deadline broke a wild story that had Tom Cruise in early talks with Elon Musk’s SpaceX and NASA to shoot a movie in space. Still, five years later, it was unclear how far along the project was in development.

The New York Post’s Page Six is now reporting that the movie has been scrapped because it would have needed NASA coordination and Trump’s approval. The outlet’s sources claim Cruise “didn’t want to cross that line.”

They would need NASA coordination to do the movie, and supposedly Tom Cruise did not want to ask Donald Trump for a favor. You’d need permission from the federal government. Tom didn’t want to ask for political reasons.

Doug Liman, who previously teamed with Cruise on “Edge of Tomorrow” and “American Made,” was supposed to direct. Earlier this year, Liman had already hinted that the film might not be happening, emphasizing that he wanted to make “space-related” films rather than one shot in space.

Trump-appointed NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine was publicly supportive in 2020, tweeting, “NASA is excited to work with @TomCruise on a film aboard the @Space_Station! We need popular media to inspire a new generation of engineers and scientists to make @NASA’s ambitious plans a reality,” per NPR.

It’s not hard to see why Cruise would not want to deal with Trump in the remaining three years left of the Presidency. Cruise had previously turned down Trump’s Kennedy Center Honor in August due to “scheduling conflicts.”

Just last month, Trump described pilots who flew the B-2 bombers that hit Iran’s enrichment facilities as “perfect specimens” who “looked like Tom Cruise… but taller. Previously, at a 2019 Michigan rally, Trump had again compared the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter pilots to Cruise, but “better looking.”

Cruise, 63, already has a heavy load of projects he seems to be prioritizing, including “Top Gun 3,” “Days of Thunder 2,” “Deeper,” and “Edge of Tomorrow 2.” Next year, he will star in Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu’s “Judy.”