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Visually striking but thinly scripted, Oblivion benefits greatly from its strong production values and an excellent performance from Tom Cruise.

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Joseph Kosinski

Jack Harper

Morgan Freeman

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If nothing else, "Oblivion" will go down in film history as the movie where Tom Cruise pilots a white, sperm-shaped craft into a giant space uterus. The scene is more interesting to describe than it is to watch. Cruise's sperm-ship enters through an airlock that resembles a geometrized vulva. He arrives inside a massive chamber lined with egg-like glass bubbles. At the center of the chamber is a pulsating, sentient triangle that is also supposed to be some kind of mother figure. Cruise must destroy the mother triangle and her space uterus in order to save the Earth.

Like director Joseph Kosinski's debut, " Tron: Legacy " (2010), "Oblivion" is a special effects extravaganza with a lot of blatant symbolism and very little meaning. It starts slow, turns dull and then becomes tedious — which makes it a marginal improvement over the earlier film. It features shiny surfaces, clicky machinery and no recognizable human behavior. It's equally ambitious and gormless.

"Oblivion" is set in the year 2077, 60 years after an alien invasion rendered the Earth largely uninhabitable. Cruise stars as Jack Harper, one of a handful of people left on the planet. The other survivors have long since relocated to Titan. Harper and colleagues remain as technicians, servicing robot drones that defend resource-gathering stations from alien stragglers.

Harper lives in a penthouse-like tower with his communications officer, Vica ( Andrea Riseborough ). Vica's eyes are permanently dilated. Like Olivia Wilde 's Quorra in " Tron: Legacy ," she often resembles a marionette.

Harper and Vica spend their days fixing drones, eating candelit dinners, and swimming in a glass-bottomed pool. Their boss, the creepily cheerful Sally ( Melissa Leo ), supervises them from an orbiting control center. In order to maintain the integrity of the mission, Harper and Vica's memories have been wiped; nonetheless, Harper is haunted by extremely cheesy black-and-white dreams of a beautiful woman meeting him in pre-invasion New York.

One day, Harper spots an antique spacecraft crashing into the countryside. He manages to rescue one survivor, a Russian astronaut ( Olga Kurylenko ) who looks exactly like the woman in his dreams. Harper brings her back to his tower. This incites jealousy and suspicion from Vica, who is both Harper's partner and his lover.

The astronaut has been in cryogenic sleep for the past six decades but refuses to disclose the nature of her mission to Harper and Vica until they recover her flight recorder. It goes without saying that the flight recorder unearths all kinds of secrets about Harper, Vica, and the alien invasion. It also creates one of the movie's more glaring logical errors, but that's a different story altogether.

The film's opening stretch is its one strong point —  a gradual, immersive build-up of details. It's a smart technique for science-fiction storytelling; it eases the viewer into the world of the film. The problem is that the world "Oblivion" introduces — an abandoned, depopulated Earth — is more interesting than the story it tells. Or, more accurately, the stories it tells, because "Oblivion," derivative to a fault, tries to be several science-fiction movies at once. It tries and it fails.

"Oblivion" is a political allegory about a lowly "technician" sending unmanned drones to hunt and kill a demonized, alien Other — until it forgets that it ever was. It's a wannabe mindbender that raises questions about its lead character's identity — except that the lead character is too sketchy to make these questions compelling. It's a story about humans struggling for survival in an environment controlled by technology — except it appears to be much more interested in the technology than in the humans. It's a rah-rah action flick — except its action scenes aren't very good.

The only thread "Oblivion" follows to the end is its "creation myth." Harper is an idealized man; he's good with a gun, good with his hands, good in bed, loves football and rides a motorcycle. Though most of the movie's characters are women, not one of them is able to do anything without Harper's help — not even the mother triangle that lives in the space uterus. Only his rugged-but-sensitive masculinity holds the key to humanity's survival. The movie reaches for profundity, but all it grasps is misogyny.

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Oblivion (2013)

Rated PG-13 for sci-fi action violence, brief strong language, and some sensuality/nudity

126 minutes

Tom Cruise as Jack

Morgan Freeman as Beech

Olga Kurylenko as Julia

Andrea Riseborough as Victoria

Nikolaj Coster-Waldau as Sykes

Melissa Leo as Sally

• Joseph Kosinski
• Karl Gajdusek
• Michael Arndt

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Den of Geek

How Tom Cruise’s Oblivion Called Back to a Forgotten, Smarter Type of Sci-Fi

Tom Cruise's Oblivion is an overlooked and minor hit in the star's filmography. It's also a tribute to the type of old school sci-fi movies we need to see more of...

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Oblivion was released as a Tom Cruise vehicle in 2013, giving him his second best box office weekend up to that time outside of the Mission: Impossible franchise. However, the sci-fi pseudo-epic also received middling reviews and almost immediately dropped out of the public consciousness altogether. Which makes its reemergence into it via Netflix this month intriguing.

Oblivion admittedly has its flaws, yet it is worth a second look if only because it so clearly has ambitions to be something so much more. In 2013 we had only recently gotten a glimpse at what the future held as the commercial effects of the first Avengers movie began to be felt. It was a year of two Marvel movies (three if you count The Wolverine ), one Superman movie, and a slew of remakes, reboots, sequels and prequels, from The Hobbit , and The Hunger Games , to Star Trek: Into Darkness and G.I. Joe . But it was also a year that saw a real outburst of non-IP, stand-alone science fiction movies. Gravity , The Europa Report , Elysium , and Snowpiercer all came out this year. These are films that often had flaws, but which were also chock full of ideas and ambition.

So Oblivion entered that market as a film that was already a dying breed: a big budget action movie that was selling itself primarily on a big name star, and Tom Cruise was already one of the few actors who could pull that off. But in doing that, Oblivion also called back to a very specific sci-fi subgenre and a very specific time—the kind we honestly wish they would make more of.

The Omega Movie Star

In Oblivion , megastar Tom Cruise plays one of the last people on a ruined Earth after the rest of the population has been evacuated to Titan. He spends his days looking after his gear and patrolling the apocalyptic hellscape he calls home while fighting off an inhuman threat in the form of the remnants of an alien invasion. Sometimes he will indulge in the music and culture left over from the dead civilization whose ruins he lives among. Eventually, while investigating the inhuman threat, he discovers that actually, it is not they, but he who is the monster. Ultimately, he will be asked to sacrifice himself. Generally speaking, it’s a concept we’ve heard before.

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In The Omega Man , mega-star Charlton Heston plays the last person on a ruined Earth after the rest of the population is killed or mutated in biological warfare. He spends his days looking at his gear, patrolling the apocalyptic hellscape he calls home while fighting off an inhuman threat in the form of the mutants created by the biological weapons. Sometimes he will indulge in the music and culture left over from the dead civilization whose ruins he lives among. Eventually, while investigating the inhuman threat, he discovers that actually, it is not they, but he who is the monster. Ultimately, he sacrifices himself.

The parallels are not exact, and nobody is suggesting that Oblivion is or was intended to be a direct remake of the Heston film, which is itself a remake of The Last Man on Earth , an adaptation of the novel I Am Legend , which ultimately inspired the entire zombie apocalypse genre.

But The Omega Man is a perfect example of the sub-genre and movie period that Oblivion seeks to emulate.

The Action Science Hero

Around the same time that Charlton Heston made The Omega Man (1971) he also starred in The Planet of the Apes (1968), and Soylent Green (1973). They are spiritually connected films with very clear, common themes. All three are adaptations of science fiction novels, although none of them attempts to trade off the reputation of those novels, changing the titles and plot details at whim to fit the needs of their stories. All three movies are also strong ideas-based films with big, high-concept premises—the world is overrun by mutants, an alien planet where apes are masters over men, and a future where population growth has run out of control. And all three films also pivot on huge (if now no longer surprising) twist: Soylent Green is people, the Planet of the Apes was Earth all along, and the mutants in The Omega Man view Robert Neville (Heston’s character) as the monster.

But also, all three star a kind of Hemingway-esque renaissance man. Across each movie, Heston’s hero is a man of action yet simultaneously a man of science; someone who can throw a punch but who has no problem keeping up with the ideas of pencil-necked professor types.

A Noble Failure

If Oblivion has been produced in the early ‘70s, it’s not hard to see how it might have appealed to Heston. The plot deals with big ideas around civilization, memory, and identity, starring a technically minded action hero with a nose for the classics, and pivoting on a massive perspective-changing twist. It slots right in.

Oblivion knows it too. Throughout the film, it seems to be pointing back to this era of sci-fi to say “See? This is what we’re doing!”

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As Cruise’s aircraft flies over the ruined Earth, we see endless recognizable half-submerged landmarks that call out to the lopsided Lady Liberty of Planet of the Apes . His sanctuary, full of old books and vinyl records, is definitely reminiscent of Neville’s fortified home in The Omega Man . Then it hits you with twists, one after the other. The aliens aren’t aliens; they’re human survivors; Cruise isn’t a human, he’s a clone and his wife was his jealous co-pilot; and the space station isn’t a space station, but an alien spaceship (an alien spaceship extremely reminiscent of the HAL 9000 computer in 2001: A Space Odyssey , released in 1968, right around the time of Heston’s sci-fi trilogy).

Oblivion is a film with really strong aesthetics, from the sterile white technology of Cruise’s character’s sky base, aircraft, and drones to the bleakly gray post-apocalyptic landscape, to the retro-coziness of his hideaway. Each of these elements harken back to different parts of this retro-sci-fi subgenre.

And yet, the film falls short of its lofty ambitions. It has big ideas but paper-thin characters—noble action hero, jealous controlling wife (with strong Total Recall vibes, while we’re here), dream woman love interest, and Morgan Freeman playing That Morgan Freeman Character. In his final confrontation with “Tet,” the evil alien spaceship AI that has been secretly controlling him all this time, Cruise delivers the following line: “And how can man die better than facing fearful odds for the ashes of his fathers and the temples of his Gods?”

It is a badass sounding line, from the Lays of Ancient Rome , a collection of narrative poems by Thomas Babington Macaulay. It encapsulates the science action hero archetype Cruise’s character represents. He’s badass, but also familiar with classical literature. It also shows how his longing for a better past has given him a connection to common humanity which he ultimately turns on his creators and masters.

And yet, we are never really given any sense of what those words mean to Cruise’s character. It’s just something cool to say when blowing up an alien spaceship. Still, the film is elevated by its implied epilogue. After Cruise’s character is dead, and his dream wife (who has now been rescued) is living in Cruise’s history shack, she sees one of Cruise’s clones wander out of the woods. One would like to think that every few months from then on, she will have to deal with a new husband turning up.

Chris Farnell

Chris Farnell is a freelance writer and the author of a novel, an anthology, a Doctor Who themed joke book and some supplementary RPG material. He…

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Oblivion: film review.

Universal's sci-fi thriller, from "Tron: Legacy" director Joseph Kosinski, opens April 19.

By Todd McCarthy

Todd McCarthy

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Oblivion Trailer Screengrab - H 2013

A sort of The Eternal Return played out in the ruins of a post-apocalyptic planet Earth, Joseph Kosinski ‘s  Oblivion is an absolutely gorgeous film dramatically caught between its aspirations for poetic romanticism and the demands of heavy sci-fi action. After a captivating beginning brimming with mystery and evident ambition, the air gradually seeps out of the balloon that keeps this thinly populated tale aloft, leaving the ultimate impression of a nice try that falls somewhat short of the mark. There’s enough futuristic eye candy and battle scenes to lure the genre boys, while the presence of three important female characters, as well as Tom Cruise in good form, could attract more women than usual for this sort of fare, resulting in mostly robust, but not great, returns worldwide. The Universal release opens this week in most international territories, while the domestic bow comes April 19.

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To those who might wish to avoid a film by the maker of Tron: Legacy , it should be stressed that Oblivion is a more interesting work by a good distance, an imaginative speculative piece set some six decades hence that always engages serious attention, even if it doesn’t convincingly jell. In mood, a certain delicacy and the sense of isolation both on a depopulated Earth and somewhere above it, the recent film that this most strongly recalls is WALL-E , except with violence and without the humor and charm of the Pixar classic.

The Bottom Line A terrific-looking sci-fier that loses steam in the second half.

PHOTOS: The Costumes of ‘Tron’

There have been many films set on an Earth depleted of humans, but few as visually enthralling as this one. Shot by Claudio Miranda of Life of Pi , Oblivion shares that film’s lovely light, nuanced coloration and virtually seamless meshing of live photography and effects. In neither film is it always possible to be entirely sure of what is real and what’s computer generated, but the result is beautiful however it breaks down.

After what appear to be memory flashes of a previous life back in an early 21st century New York City on the part of Cruise’s Jack Harper, he and his partner Vika ( Andrea Riseborough ) wake up in what can only take the prize as the ultimate loft space, circa 2077, a perch that’s the last word in minimalist chic. It also affords unobstructed views of what’s been left behind after the catastrophe that saw the moon blown into pieces, which in turn resulted in earthly ruin and a subsequent evacuation of survivors to Saturn’s planet Titan.

Jack (Cruise’s second use of the name in a row, after Jack Reacher ) takes daily spins down to Earth in a bladeless, mosquito-like helicopter, while the British Vika tracks his movements and coordinates with headquarters, personified on a screen by the friendly, Southern-accented Sally ( Melissa Leo ). The self-described “mop-up crew,” Jack and Sally, who get on well, have only two weeks to go before they finish up and head for Titan.

On the ground, Jack looks for any signs of Scavengers, or Scavs, who, apparently, were defeated in the great war but still provoke worries with their desperate ambushes. He also must avoid the radioactive zones, which remain hot. Everywhere he goes, however, Jack is protected by drones, fast-flying globe-like hi-tech wonders that are armed to the teeth and can reliably detect friend or foe.

Jack seems to relish being haunted by the past. He wears a Yankees cap, nostalgically wallows in lore surrounding the final Super Bowl, played in 2017, while surrounded by the ruins of the stadium where it took place and uses the upper part of the Empire State Building, which sticks out of the ground that has swallowed the rest of the structure, as a sort of home base and control tower.

Jack also is inordinately fond of a collection of highfalutin Victorian-era verse by Thomas Macaulay  titled The Lays of Ancient Rome , especially the line that reads, “And how can man die better than facing fearful odds.” Given that Jack seems to be the last man responsible for tidying up affairs on Earth, he’d better not die prematurely, though there is someone or something down there that seems bent on catching him.

STORY: Tom Cruise Plans Imax Q&A to Promote Universal Pictures’ ‘Oblivion’

The film’s delightful sense of apartness in the early going and the industrious way that Vika, especially, approaches her task of administering to the final business of Earth are things that can’t last, especially not after Jack brings home the one survivor of a mysterious crash of a spaceship carrying several hibernating humans. Once she wakes up and recovers, Julia ( Olga Kurylenko ) throws a monkey wrench into life in the loft, not only because she is so beautiful (Riseborough’s alarmed reactions to her are indelibly registered) but because she is an arrival from the past, when she was Jack’s wife.

Revelations of what follows are best not detailed, except to say that Morgan Freeman and Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, respectively, play the intelligent and impulsive members of a rebel band that soon captures Jack and Julia. As much as Jack aspires to recapture the past, however, and regardless of Julia’s evident purity of intent, the renewed relationship doesn’t click as intended, mostly because it’s tough to buy the conceit of the couple reunited after so long.

Further twists and betrayals lie in store, but they feel more like obligatory plot complications than organic to the overall story. As a result, viewer engagement gradually lessens, leading to a climax that makes for thematic sense but dramatic head-scratching.

There’s a bit too much manly stunt stuff, the better likes of which we’ve seen in the Mission: Impossible extravaganzas and elsewhere, but generally Cruise plays it naturalistic and low-key here, likable and to solid effect. Riseborough, who was the one person worth watching in Madonna ‘s wretched W.E. , is an inspired bit of casting as she brings prim, snappy delivery to many routine lines and irrepressible emotion to her later behavior. Kurylenko is more than plausible as a woman who would inspire recurring dreams in Jack, while Leo has so much personality that she can burst right through the limitations of her video screen-only appearances and still register strongly.

Technically, the film is a dream; if Tron: Legacy showed that Kosinski was right at home in an imaginary, effects-created world, then Oblivion reveals him as well along the road toward applying effects to even grander ends, in this case to a story he originally conceived years ago as a graphic novel that was adapted as a script by Karl Gajdusek and Michael DeBruyn .

The unconventional electronic score by M83 is terrifically effective for the first hour and maybe more until it starts becoming a bit repetitive.

Opens: April 10-12 (international), April 19 (U.S.) (Universal)

Production: Chernin Entertainment, Monolith Pictures, Radical Studios

Cast: Tom Cruise, Morgan Freeman, Olga Kurylenko, Andrea Riseborough, Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, Melissa Leo, Zoe Bell

Director: Joseph Kosinski

Screenwriters: Karl Gajdusek, Michael DeBruyn , based on the graphic novel original story by Joseph Kosinski

Producers: Joseph Kosinski, Peter Chernin, Dylan Clark, Barry Levine, Duncan Henderson

Executive producers: Dave Morrison, Jesse Berger, Justin Springer

Director of photography: Claudio Miranda

Production designer: Darren Gilford

Costume designer: Marlene Stewart

Editor: Richard Francis-Bruce

Visual effects supervisors: Eric Barba, Bjorn Mayer

PG-13 rating, 124 minutes

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After the Apocalypse, Things Go Downhill

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By Manohla Dargis

• April 18, 2013

If only it were less easy to laugh at “Oblivion,” a lackluster science-fiction adventure with Tom Cruise that, even before its opening, was groaning under the weight of its hard-working, slowly fading star and a title that invites mockery of him and it both. The agony of being a longtime Tom Cruise fan has always been a burden, but now it’s just, well, dispiriting. You not only have to ignore the din of the tabloids and swat away the buzzing generated by his multiple headline-ready dramas, you also have to come to grips with the harsh truth that it no longer actually matters why and how Tom Terrific became less so. No one else much cares.

Mr. Cruise hasn’t made it easy. His screen presence has continued to grow ever-more self-serious, despite occasional attempts to lighten up, as in the recent would-be satire “Rock of Ages.” Midway through “Oblivion” I wondered when I had last believed there was something true in his laugh, something that felt either genuinely expansive or intimate, as in “Jerry Maguire,” or chilled with a hint of madness, as in “Magnolia.” Mind you, he doesn’t have many occasions to laugh in “Oblivion,” a gray post-apocalyptic tale with rainbow accents, yet when he does, it feels uncomfortably forced. In those moments, was he worrying that the movie wasn’t going to return him to the box office summit? He’s 50 years old and too young to be prepping for a slow fade, yet what are his choices?

Working with better directors — with filmmakers who know how to charm or force performances out of stars or perhaps say no to them — seems like a good place to start. “Oblivion” is only the second feature directed by Joseph Kosinski, after the 2010 release “Tron: Legacy.” That special effects-laden fantasy, a musty hero’s journey largely distinguished by the yawning divide between its poor quality and its $170 million price tag, was a flat line of a dud in almost every respect. It nonetheless made enough money to shore up an exploitable franchise property and spawn a sequel, and while this may not sound like much of an achievement, box office success or the perception of it can beget more opportunities in the movie business, which may help explain “Oblivion.”

Its story primarily unfolds in 2077, long after a cataclysmic war between earthlings and extraterrestrials. Nuked to all but radioactive ash, the Earth has been rendered nearly uninhabitable, and its remaining people have fled to a galactic shelter. The only ones left on the planet appear to be Jack Harper (Mr. Cruise) and his companion, Victoria (Andrea Riseborough), who live in a cantilevered aerie above the clouds that brings to mind a “Jetsons” sky pad. His job is to repair drones that patrol the facilities that extract resources for the surviving populace and that are under attack from the aliens, or Scavs, as in scavengers. She monitors him back at their place, waving her hands over a tabletop computer, while in full makeup and rocking some fabulous end-of-days-to-night dresses and heels.

The heels seem a strange choice given, you know, the whole doomsday thing, not to mention the glossiness of the couple’s floors. Then again, from the way she strips for some late-night nuzzling, her get-up does appear to have instrumental value, even if one misstep and she or at least an ankle would be a goner. A similar kind of tricky balancing act is inherent in science fiction, a genre that often employs recognizable details to tether readers and viewers in fantastical realms. It’s a form, as is often noted, that makes the strange familiar and the familiar strange, a narrative principle that Mr. Kosinski embraces again and again with niceties like Jack’s Yankee baseball cap and Jack and Victoria’s candlelight dinners.

The candles add atmosphere, as does that baseball cap. But because Mr. Kosinski hasn’t come up with a resonant idea to accompany them — a new or different way of looking at the world that exists and the world that might one day come into being — his retro flourishes prove as empty as the lunarlike landscapes. There’s an arresting moment, for instance, when Jack drives through a blasted-out terrain littered with ships partly submerged in earth, a vista that demonstrates Mr. Kosinski’s fondness for playing with negative space. The vision of a man existentially alone conjures up countless cowboys traveling through innumerable westerns and summons up the shock of the half-buried Statue of Liberty in “Planet of the Apes.” Yet again, Mr. Kosinski fails to build on his materials and the allusions soon fade.

All genre fictions build, self-consciously or not, on their progenitors. The problem with “Oblivion,” which is based on an unpublished graphic novel Mr. Kosinski wrote and used to pitch the studio, is that it’s been stitched together from bits and pieces that evoke numerous other, far better far-out tales and ideas, conceits and characters from the likes of Philip K. Dick, the Wachowskis, J. G. Ballard and Duncan Jones, specifically his elegant, elegiac movie, “Moon.” No matter how hard Mr. Cruise squares his jaw or flings his body over and against the scenery, and despite the presence of Morgan Freeman, Olga Kurylenko and Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, who trickle into the story to aid in Jack’s journey, “Oblivion” never transcends its inspirations to become anything other than a thin copy.

“Oblivion” is rated PG-13. (Parents strongly cautioned.) Zap-gun violence and skinny-dipping.

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Tom Cruise’s Space Movie Will Make Him the ‘First Civilian to Do a Spacewalk Outside of the Space Station,’ Universal Boss Says

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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 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.

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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.

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You need to watch the most underrated Tom Cruise sci-fi thriller on HBO Max ASAP

This twisty mind-bender proves the Mission Impossible star is more than just a mindless stuntman.

It might seem easy at first glance, but it’s actually very hard to pin down what exactly defines a “Tom Cruise movie.” There’s the obvious answer of “big action movie where he does his own stunts,” like the Mission: Impossible franchise, but the actor’s choices are surprisingly varied . Cruise is just as ready to send up his persona as he is to enhance it, as seen in Tropic Thunder and his hair-metal turn in Rock of Ages.

And then there’s Joseph Kosinski’s Oblivion , which seems to comment directly on Cruise’s role as a heroic action star. The 2013 movie is aesthetically in line with Denis Villeneuve’s Arrival and Dune . When its 10th anniversary arrives next year, maybe it will be seen as a fellow traveler in embracing grandiose minimalism in an isolated world.

WHAT’S YOUR FAVORITE SCI-FI MOVIE? Tell us now for a chance to get paid to write an article for Inverse .

Cruise plays Jack Harper, the last repairman on Earth following an attack by a mysterious alien race called “the scavengers” who struck first by blowing up the Moon. An epic battle ensued. Earth won, but it was a pyrrhic victory. The planet's nuclear weapons were used with abandon and the planet is unlivable. So humanity is planning a mass exodus to Titan, a moon of Saturn, on a giant spaceship called the Tet.

What’s Jack doing? Well, humanity’s trip to Titan is going to be powered by seawater, so massive harvesters are sucking up the ocean. But there are still scavengers about playing saboteur, so humanity has built drones to defend the harvesters. When they’re attacked, they need repairs. Jack’s job, along with Victoria (Andrea Riseborough), and Sally (Melissa Leo) back at Mission Control is to repair those robots. It’s a little like a military school commander once predicted in The Simpsons — except their memories have also been erased.

Jack, known as “Tech 49” to the drones he repairs, loves zipping around Earth in his bug-like ship and a sweet motorcycle while reciting old football stories. It’s hard to blame him. The world Kosinki built is gorgeous. Originally an unpublished graphic novel, Oblivion ’s setting is as massive as it is bleak. Technically a New York movie, Jack spots several of the city’s landmarks on his travels. Most of the Earth has been wiped out, leaving only the peaks of skyscrapers and the flame of the Statue of Liberty above the surface.

There’s no reason the apocalypse can’t be beautiful.

Oblivion ’s vision of an abandoned Earth is fascinating. The Pentagon lies in ruins, the Washington Monument is beachfront property and leaning over like the Tower of Pisa, and sunken ships are scattered across the desert of once-vast oceans. These massive vistas are offset by smaller touches, like the seatbelt in Jack’s ship and his Elvis bobblehead.

One of the most effective visuals is the Space Tower where Jack and Victoria live far above the dangerous Earth. The spindly tower is surrounded by gorgeous views; the production crew actually filmed its vistas from a Hawaiian volcano and projected the results around the room. It makes the Space Tower feel part of the Earth, yet distant from it, in ways simple CGI couldn’t achieve.

After picking up a book at the New York Public Library, Jack encounters a signal being sent into space from the Empire State Building. Even more mysteriously, objects start falling out of the sky. While Sally urges Jack to let the drones solve these mysteries, he’s spurred on to investigate. In doing so, Jack finds stasis pods with humans in them that shouldn’t be returning to Earth.

It’s a confusing future.

Jack is able to save one of the people in the pods, a woman named Julia (Olga Kurylenko). Julia’s in for quite a shock. She’s been in stasis for around sixty years, during which the whole “the Moon gets blown up by aliens and humans use nukes to blow up the aliens and then humanity has to mass-evacuate to Titan” thing happened. Stunned, Julia wants to go back and investigate the crash.

When Jack gets her to the site, they’re attacked by scavengers. But the scavengers have a surprise for Jack and Julia. They’re not aliens. They’re humans led by Malcolm Beech (Morgan Freeman, cigar in hand) and Sergeant Sykes (​​Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, in-between seasons of Game of Thrones ).

Jack suddenly realizes that he doesn’t know everything about his life on Earth. Oblivion is a twist-based movie, with a narrative change crucial to understanding the plot that emerges late. Secrets are revealed, lies exposed. Jack Harper isn’t who he thinks he is, and his mission is a very different one than he was told.

One aspect of Jack’s past that comes into play is that he was once very respected by everyone on Earth. This aspect of his character, his heroism, is in line with so many of Cruise’s action star roles. Uncovering and subverting the truth of this role in Oblivion shows that perhaps no one has been more critical of Tom Cruise movies than Cruise himself.

With gorgeous visuals, a small and fascinating cast, and a wonderful soundtrack by M83, Oblivion is a surprise in Cruise’s canon waiting to be discovered.

Oblivion is streaming now on HBO Max .

This article was originally published on Jan. 23, 2022

• Science Fiction

Tom Cruise in Oblivion : Drones and Clones on Planet Earth

One of Hollywood's last stars wins battles against enemy spacecraft, but he can't infuse this artsy sci-fi film with emotional vitality

Earth , 2077. Sixty years earlier, alien invaders had blown up our moon, and an intergalactic battle ensued. “We won the war but lost the planet,” says Jack Harper ( Tom Cruise ), a kind of grease-monkey pilot whose job is to repair the drones that monitor desolate Earth while the rest of humanity lives in a remote space station. His coworker and assigned girlfriend Victoria (Andrea Riseborough) directs Jack’s flying sorties over the wreckage of Manhattan, which may literally be a no-man’s land. Yet as he lies in bed with Victoria, Jack has visions of another, mysterious woman (Olga Kurylenko), from his fantasies or his past. “I know you, but we’ve never met. I’m with you and I don’t know your name. I know I’m dreaming, but it feels like more that. It feels like a memory. How can that be?”

And how is it that science-fiction films imagine the worst for our future while steeped in love-loss for our past? Perhaps because the genre blossomed, as literature and then cinema, in the late 1940s — the time of the Cold War and the first nuclear age — when our world’s two great powers played a deadly game of mutually assured destruction, and when fearing the prospect of human extinction was not paranoia, just common sense. It’s no wonder that any time before the Bomb seemed Edenic to sci-fi writers, readers and movigoers; any time after might spell The End.

(SEE: TIME’s Top 10 Sci-Fi Movies of the 1950s )

The same warm ache of nostalgia envelops the Jack of 2077, the hero of Joseph Kosinski’s oh-so-serious Oblivion , for the pre-invasion Earth of 2017. He stands at the top of the Empire State Building, most of it covered in sand and rubble, wanders through the caverns of the New York Public Library on 42nd Street (only eight blocks away from King Kong’s final perch but miraculously not buried) and patrols Yankee Stadium, scene of the very last World Series. He saves old books, a catcher’s mitt and baseball and some LPs from the 1960s and ’70s; Procol Harum keeps playing on his internal iTunes. Fixating on the 1948 Andrew Wyeth painting Christina’s World , and on his dream girl, Jack finds a verdant interior life in this wasteland by mixing memory and desire. His poetic guide, though, is not Eliot but Macaulay, whose famous couplet in The Lays of Ancient Rome — “And how can man die better than facing fearful odds, / For the ashes of his fathers, and the temples of his Gods…” — haunts Jack like a long-ago pop tune or a distant battle cry.

Oblivion must be the only science-fiction film that borrows substantially from I Am Legend , WALL-E and Sleepless in Seattle — itself a remake of 1957’s  An Affair to Remember , which was a remake of 1939’s  Love Affair . In fact, everything in this movie keeps looking backward. Victoria warns Jack that “Our job is to not remember. Remember?” That’s the cue for this company man with a rebellious streak to find his future in the past, to decide if he’s fishing for  memory or waking up inside of a dream. Jack must attend to the dual meaning of “oblivion”: “nothing” and “forgetfulness.” If we’ve misplaced our memories, we’ve lost ourselves.

(READ: Corliss’ review of the Will Smith I Am Legend )

The movie’s trailer and poster have alerted viewers that Jack and Victoria are not alone on Earth. Morgan Freeman briefly emerges from the underworld as a Zeus-Hades insurgent, sporting sunglasses and chomping on a cigar. (Where’d he find that — in a subterranean smoke shop?) Melissa Leo, with a fake-syrupy Southern accent, is seen on Riseborough’s screen as a mid-level operative back at Mission Control. And Kurylenko, also in theaters now as Ben Affleck’s whirling wife in Terrence Malick’s To the Wonder , eventually shows up in person when Jack rescues her from a shot-down spaceship on which she had taken a long cryogenic nap. (No surprise: she looks great.) But Oblivion is still so underpopulated that. when Jack requires a suitable rival for a bare-knuckles fight, it’s a clone of himself.

(READ: Corliss’s review of To the Wonder )

Kosinski, the 3-D graphics whiz who has a Master’s degree in architecture from Columbia University, made his feature-film debut with the 2010 Tron: Legacy (a sequel-remake that also hopscotches through time). Oblivion shows that Kosinski certainly has an eye for spiffy shapes — the sleek watchtower, the collapsible metallic grandeur of Jack’s aircraft, the platoon of drones with one glowering red eye and the frowny face of a Pac-man goblin— amid a ravishingly barren landscape. Indeed, the juggling of opposites is this director’s game: to make an artistic statement while indulging his star’s need to be a Top Gun aerial ace, a moto-bike demon and an old-fashioned romantic swain.

(READ: Mary Pols’ review of Tron: Legacy )

Cruise nearly carries it off. At 50, with a few becoming facial creases but also looking cryogenically preserved, he is still the boyish action star, a perpetual-motion machine who’s been told No so many times he’s stopped listening and leaped into the enthralling unknown. The extreme closeups that find only generic worry in Riseborough’s face are kind to Cruise; he instinctively knows how to communicate to an audience through a possibly thoughtful stare. (We haven’t seen the old-young smiling Tom on the big screen for ages; he’s taken Will Smith’s lead and traded in his trademark grin for a world-weary grimace.) After playing the dessicated Stacee Jaxx in Rock of Ages , and the hobo sleuth in Jack Reacher , Cruise completes his Jack trilogy as Harper, spelunking inside the crevices of his memory or fantasy.

(READ: Corliss on Tom Cruise in Rock of Ages and Jack Reacher )

The exigencies of Cruise’s participation demand fights and flights. We get one pretty cool space dogfight, as Jack plays bumper cars with a flotilla of enemy aircraft, and one lame one that’s way too reminiscent of, and less thrilling than, the climactic chase in the original Star Wars . Rule for sci-fi directors: No more aerial Indy 500-style battles in narrow canyons.

But the biggest collision in Oblivion — one Kosinski may not have intended — is between the feverish action scenes and the slowness, we might say torpor, of the rest of the film. For all the shouting and swooning, characters don’t connect; and by the end, when all the clones and drones are accounted for, science-fiction entropy has given way to audience ennui. Six minutes or 60 years after seeing the movie, viewers are unlikely to remember it.

In space, Jack hopes, someone may hear you dream. But in a movie theater, no one will see you yawn.

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Tom Cruise's Latest Headed For 'Oblivion'

David Edelstein

Joseph Kosinski's sci-fi adventure, starring Tom Cruise, is the most incoherent piece of storytelling since John Travolta's Battlefield Earth. It had critic David Edelstein crying, "What? What? " over the din of the explosions.

Copyright © 2013 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information.

NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.

Tom Cruise Movies List

1. Endless Love

3. The Outsiders

4. Losin' It

5. All the Right Moves

6. Risky Business

9. The Color of Money

10. Cocktail

11. Rain Man

12. Born on the Fourth of July

13. Days of Thunder

14. A Few Good Men

15. The Firm

16. Interview with the Vampire: The Vampire Chronicles

17. Mission: Impossible

18. Jerry Maguire

19. Eyes Wide Shut

20. Magnolia

21. Mission: Impossible II

22. Stanley Kubrick: A Life in Pictures

23. Vanilla Sky

24. Space Station 3D

25. Minority Report

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Screen Rant

Tom cruise gives careful update on his outer space movie.

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Star Wars: 11 Things That Make No Sense About Luke Skywalker

Inside out can't repeat a pivotal toy story decision that brought multiple $1 billion sequels, star wars is finally confirming yoda wasn't to blame for the jedi's fall.

Mission: Impossible star Tom Cruise offers a careful update about his ambitious plans for a new film which would see him launched into space. First announced in May 2020, the untitled project is set to reunite Cruise with his Edge of Tomorrow director Doug Liman and reportedly involves using Elon Musk’s SpaceX program to allow him to shoot scenes set aboard the International Space Station. While Cruise’s journey into space was originally planned for October 2021, it has since been pushed back allowing the Russian-made film The Challenge to become the first time a professional actor has been filmed in space.

Variety spoke with Cruise about the out-of-this-world project during his red-carpet appearance at the Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One New York premiere.

Suggesting that he still does not know when the project will finally see him shot into outer space, he revealed that both he and Liman have been diligently working on their plans stating " I don't know yet. We've been working on it diligently, and we'll see where we go. "

How Going Into Space Is The Next Natural Step For Tom Cruise

With a career spanning over four decades, Tom Cruise has consistently proven himself an audience drawcard with few equals. Between strapping himself into the cockpit of a $70 million Boeing F/A-18 Super Hornet to climbing the world’s tallest building, Cruise has regularly put himself into increasingly risky situations in order to deliver some of cinema’s most memorable moments. Moreover, Cruise’s insistence on providing audiences with real-life stuntwork over digital wizardry has also continued to deliver healthy box-office returns at a time when other big-budget blockbusters like Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny are struggling.

With Cruise constantly upping the ante and challenging himself to perform even bigger and better stunts, it was only a matter of time before he set his sights on space. Having already used nearly every conceivable Earth-bound aircraft, the only next logical step available to the daredevil actor would be to climb into a rocket and leave the planet behind entirely. While it is now too late for Tom Cruise to make the first film in space , what is already known about Cruise's plans would suggest that he is set on becoming the first civilian to perform a spacewalk at the International Space Station.

Related: Tom Cruise's Huge Space Movie Plan Can Complete A Wild Career Trend

While Cruise’s latest update does not provide much of an indication of when audiences can expect to see his extra-planetary escapades for themselves, it seems the star is still keen to see his plans eventuate. With his latest action-packed efforts in Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One already drawing considerable praise, it will be interesting to see what kind of impact Tom Cruise 's most ambitious film will have when it finally arrives from beyond our world’s atmosphere.

Source: Variety

Tom Cruise: All New Movies Coming Out in 2023 and 2024

After his breakthrough with leading roles in ‘Risky Business’ and ‘ Top Gun ‘ in the 1980s, Thomas “Tom” Cruise Mapother IV started bagging pivotal roles in several dramas, including ‘ Born on the Fourth of July ,’ for which he even won a Golden Globe Award and got nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor. In the 1990s, he rose to newer heights of stardom by featuring in various commercially successful films, such as ‘ A Few Good Men ,’ ‘ Interview with the Vampire ,’ ‘The Firm,’ and ‘ Jerry Maguire .’

Once he impacted dramas, he started traversing the action and sci-fi genres. By landing some iconic roles in the ‘ Mission: Impossible ‘ film series, ‘ Collateral ,’ ‘ Edge of Tomorrow ,’ and ‘ Top Gun: Maverick ,’ he established himself as an action star, performing most of the risky stunts on his own. The winner of three Golden Globe Awards, four nominations for the Oscars, and an Honorary Palme d’Or, Tom Cruise is known to be one of the world’s highest-paid actors. Given his immense popularity and fandom, most of our readers are looking forward to his future projects. Here is a list of all the upcoming movies and TV shows of Tom Cruise!

1. Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part Two (2024)

Tom Cruise recently jumped off a cliff on a motorbike for ‘ Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One ‘ and he will be in action soon enough in its sequel, ‘Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part Two.’ Helmed by Christopher McQuarrie, the spy action movie is the eighth installment in the ‘Mission: Impossible’ film series with Cruise reprising his role as Ethan Hunt for the eighth time running.

Although the plot details are kept under wraps, the action-adventure film is most likely to resume Ethan’s hunt for The Entity as he meets some new friends and foes along the way. The production for the sequel began in March 2022 but is yet to be finished due to the delay caused by the 2023 SAG-AFTRA strike. Having gone through several postponements due to the COVID-19 pandemic when it comes to its release date, it is now officially set to be released on June 28, 2024. But it is very much possible that it will get postponed again due to the pause in production.

2. Untitled Tom Cruise/SpaceX Project (TBA)

Tom Cruise is set to take his status as an action star to the next level by traveling out of Earth to film the first ever Hollywood motion picture in outer space. In May 2020, it was reported that Elon Musk’s Space X and Cruise were working on an action-adventure project with NASA. Not only is Cruise expected to be blasted into space alongside filmmaker Doug Liman, with whom he has previously worked in ‘ American Made ‘ and ‘Edge of Tomorrow,’ for the upcoming film, but he will also live up to his reputation by attempting to do a space walk outside of the International Space Station. In this movie, Cruise is set to essay the role of a down-on-his-luck man who is the sole person in the position to save Earth. Apart from starring in the film, he is attached to the project as a writer as well as a producer.

3. Live Die Repeat and Repeat (TBA)

A sequel to the 2014 movie ‘Edge of Tomorrow,’ ‘Live Die Repeat and Repeat’ is an upcoming science fiction film that will reportedly reunite Tom Cruise and director Doug Liman, with the former set to reprise his role as Major William Cage. Moreover, Emily Blunt is also rumored to portray Rita again, alongside Cruise. Ever since the release of the hit original film, talks of a sequel have been flying around. However, in 2019, it was finally set in motion when Matthew Robinson was brought on to write the script.

Fast forward to a couple of years later, in a May 2021 interview with Entertainment Weekly , Emily Blunt revealed, “That was an amazing script, but I just don’t know what the future holds for it. I did read a script that was in really great shape, but it’s just a matter of if that can even happen now. I don’t have the straight answer on that one.” With the project still lingering in the development stage, it is hard to expect it to be brought to life in at least a couple of years.

Read More: Best Movies of Tom Cruise

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Tom Cruise Might Actually Go to Space for Upcoming Film

By Daniel Kreps

Daniel Kreps

Over two years after it was first reported that Tom Cruise might shoot a film aboard the International Space Station, it appears that the actor is inching closer to becoming “the first civilian to do a spacewalk.”

Back in May 2020, NASA confirmed that they were in talks with Cruise and SpaceX on some sort of film project that was unrelated to the actor’s Mission: Impossible films. “We need popular media to inspire a new generation of engineers and scientists to make @NASA’s ambitious plans a reality,” NASA administrator Jim Bridenstine wrote at the time.

With Top Gun: Maverick released and the next M: I installments on the way, Universal Filmed Entertainment Group chairman Donna Langley told the BBC that sending Cruise to space is among the studio’s mission, and shared more details about the project.

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Rather than relying on boring old CGI technology like every other space movie, Cruise — known for doing his own increasingly death-defying stunts — will actually rocket up to the ISS and become “the first civilian to do a spacewalk outside of the space station”; it’s unclear whether he’ll stroll around outside the station, as Langley said, or if he’ll actually enter the ISS, as NASA previously stated.

However, the movie is still in the dream phase and hasn’t begun production yet. Cruise does have some previous ISS experience having narrated, via Earth, the 2002 IMAX documentary Space Station 3D .

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Tom Cruise Gives Update on Plans to Film a Movie in Space: 'Working on It Diligently'

The actor's latest film "Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One" is in theaters now

Henry Chandonnet is an Editorial Intern at PEOPLE. Their work has previously appeared in V Magazine, The Daily Dot, Salon, and Document Journal.

JC Olivera/Getty Images

Tom Cruise is still charting his work trip to space.

Back in 2020 it was revealed that the actor was planning to film a movie in outer space .

While at the Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One premiere in New York City this week, Cruise, 61, was asked about the status of the space-exploring film.

“We’ve been working on it diligently,” he teased to Variety . “We’ll see where we go.”

The project was first announced by NASA back in 2020, days after a report came out claiming Cruise was looking to space for cinematic inspiration.

NASA director Jim Bridenstein led the charge: “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.” 

Elon Musk , founder of SpaceX , tacked onto the excitement. “Should be a lot of fun!" Musk replied in a tweet.

Never miss a story — sign up for PEOPLE's free daily newsletter to stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer, from juicy celebrity news to compelling human interest stories.

Getty Images

Weeks later, Deadline reported that the project had confirmed Doug Liman to direct . Cruise and Liman previously worked together on 2014's Edge of Tomorrow and 2017's American Made .

Two years later, Universal Pictures executive Donna Langley confirmed the movie’s production in an interview with BBC News . 

“I think Tom Cruise is taking us to space. He's taking the world to space," Langley said. "That's the plan. 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 space walk outside of the Space Station."

The upcoming film, which Langley said Cruise pitched to her over a Zoom call during the pandemic, has a budget in the area of $200 million, according to Variety .

Stefania M. D'Alessandro/Getty 

“During the pandemic he asked for a Zoom call with us and got onto the call and said, 'Guys, I've got this great project and here it is,' " Langley said. "The majority of the story actually takes place on Earth and then the character needs to go up to space to save the day.”

While Cruise works “diligently” on his space film, he is currently rolling out his latest Mission: Impossible movie. While Dead Reckoning Part One can be found in theaters now, writer/director Christopher McQuarrie admitted that Part Two is yet to be completed. “We finish this tour, and on our way back to the U.K. we stop to scout along the way. We hit the ground running as soon as we get back,” McQuarrie told Variety . “I get two days of vacation between here and Tokyo and I’m back on.”

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This Tom Cruise Movie Missed the Target at the Box Office — But Its Hitting the Bullseye on Netflix

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The Big Picture

• Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning has found success on Netflix after struggling to outdo its hefty budget at the box office.
• Despite its box office woes, Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning received positive reviews from critics and audiences alike.
• The shift towards digital consumption has given the film a second chance to shine and attract new fans.

Tom Cruise’s Ethan Hunt might be known for pulling off the impossible, but the latest mission didn't quite skyrocket at the box office. Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning , co-written and directed by franchise veteran Christopher McQuarrie , initially seemed like it couldn't dodge the box office bullet. But much like Ethan Hunt escaping an exploding Kremlin, the seventh installment of this adrenaline-fueled saga has found a new avenue for victory: Netflix.

Nearly a year after its theatrical release, Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning has surged back into the spotlight, climbing Netflix's Global Top 10 chart for the week of June 10-16. With 5.6 million views and a staggering 15.3 million hours clocked in, it secured the third spot, nestled comfortably behind Four Brothers and Hit Man . While it isn't available on Netflix in the United States — where it continues its mission on Paramount+ and MGM+ — the international Netflix audience has embraced Ethan Hunt's latest escapade.

Despite garnering a hefty $567 million worldwide, Dead Reckoning faced an unexpected challenge that even Ethan Hunt might struggle with: the double whammy of Barbie and Oppenheimer (affectionately dubbed "Barbenheimer") releasing the following weekend. The simultaneous drop of these cinematic heavyweights overshadowed what was supposed to be a dominating performance for the IMF crew.

How Good Is 'Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning'?

Critics and audiences alike hailed Dead Reckoning as one of the franchise's finest, boasting a 96% Rotten Tomatoes score and a 94% audience rating . These accolades placed it just a notch below the revered Fallout , but the $291 million production budget, which reached such a height due to COVID constraints , demanded more than just applause. To break even, the film needed to rake in $582-727 million — a mission made nearly impossible by pandemic-induced delays and stiff competition.

Though the theatrical run didn't hit the expected highs, Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning is doing what Ethan Hunt does best : adapting and overcoming. Its resurgence on Netflix isn't just a testament to its lasting appeal but also a reminder of the shifting landscapes of film consumption. With audiences now binge-watching Hunt's fight against the rogue AI known as the Entity, the film is experiencing a renaissance.

Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning may have stumbled at the box office, but its digital success underscores a vital truth in today’s entertainment world: the game isn’t over when the credits roll on opening weekend. With its gripping action sequences and edge-of-your-seat plot twists, it’s no wonder fans are flocking to Netflix to catch Ethan Hunt in action once more. Stay tuned to Collider for more. International fans can catch the film on Netflix and U.S. readers can head over to Paramount+ .

Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One

Ethan Hunt and his IMF team must track down a dangerous weapon before it falls into the wrong hands.

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Tom Cruise Should Listen to His Fans and Work on This Sequel If His Next Mission Ends Up in Another Financial Loss

T om Cruise signed a deal with Warner Bros. to co-produce and star in their films a few months ago, renewing their relationship after 2014’s Edge of Tomorrow . It was also rumored that Cruise and director Doug Liman were working on a space film project together. Now, Liman has shared that WB has been approaching him constantly for a sequel to his film. It appears that fans too want a second film from Cruise and Liman.

If such a film ever happens, it would be the perfect way to balance his current filmography. Cruise’s iconic IP, the Mission: Impossible films, are dropping in popularity with the last film making a financial loss for Paramount.

Tom Cruise’s Fans Want One Sequel That Could Make Him The No. 1 Box Office Star Again

Edge of Tomorrow was one of those projects where Tom Cruise was ready to experiment with new types of roles. The otherwise daring actor on screen played a more cowardly role in the film, even surprising director Doug Liman . It was also the last time he worked with Warner Bros. before he made a deal with the studio in 2024.

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The 2014 film was a high-concept thriller that many fans of the actor absolutely loved and has since been demanding a sequel. However, Cruise, Liman, and WB never got around to making the sequel in the decade following the release of the film. Interestingly, Liman revealed the other day that the studio has been pushing for a sequel for some time now. He shared with Total Film :

Edge of Tomorrow, there’s no better compliment than Warner Bros. constantly bringing up, ‘Will you go and make another one of these?’

Cruise played the role of Major William Cage, who relives the same day again and again, thus gaining the combat skills to fight an alien invasion. He gets help from a seasoned warrior Rita Vrataski, played by Emily Blunt . The film did a decent job at the box office too, receiving positive reviews and making $370.5 million ( via Box Office Mojo ).

The Top Gun actor’s new deal with WB has reignited the fans’ interest in the project. According to the deal , they would jointly produce “original and franchise theatrical films” . Many fans deemed Edge of Tomorrow as franchise-worthy material. The new franchise will also help Cruise to establish a footing after his latest Mission: Impossible film failed to make a box office impact.

Tom Cruise May Want Another Franchise For Redemption After Mission: Impossible 7  Loss

Tom Cruise and Paramount didn’t expect the financial setback faced by Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning . With each entry in the franchise, the trend showed a rise in the box office appeal until the seventh film. Dead Reckoning could only collect $567 million during its theatrical run despite its largely positive reviews ( via The Numbers ).

In comparison, Ghost Protocol and Rogue Nation made $694 million and $688 million respectively. The sixth film Fallout became the highest-grossing film in the franchise with an impressive collection of $791 million. While the numbers of Dead Reckoning appear to be decent , it is notable that the film was one of the most expensive films ever made with a production budget of $290 million.

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According to Variety , the film made financial losses for Paramount in the range of $40 million. Many movie experts cite the Barbenheimer phenomenon as a major reason that trounced the film at the box office. Barbie was released only a week after the seventh MI film and the marketing efforts of the Greta Gerwig film outmatched Cruise’s film.

Edge of Tomorrow is available for streaming on Max. Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning and other films in the franchise are now available for streaming on Paramount+.