Edge of Tomorrow is a really underrated movie. It’s got giant mechs fighting monsters, a bizarre Groundhog Day-esque plot, one of Bill Paxton’s final roles and Tom Cruise pulling some exceptionally silly faces. The only flaw is its dull as dishwater title, which was changed at the last minute from the excellent Live. Die. Repeat (and then there’s the even cooler original title All You Need Is Kill).
Anyhow, the film was released to a relatively warm critical reception, but didn’t exactly set the box office on fire, making $370 million on a budget of $178 million. So not a flop, but not great, either. Still, it’s enough to warrant more and now, we’re hearing that Edge of Tomorrow 2 is finally getting ready to head into production.
Director Doug Liman spoke about the project’s status while on the press tour for Impulse and explained that “Yeah, the script is ready” and that they’re waiting for Tom Cruise to finish up on his next Mission: Impossible project before they begin. But here’s the rub: Cruise and director Christopher McQuarrie are shooting Mission: Impossible 7 and Mission: Impossible 8 back to back. Those films are scheduled for release in 2021 and 2022 and shooting them will doubtless take up much of Cruise’s time in 2020, with inevitable reshoots meaning he’ll be busy even beyond that.
So, assuming that proves to be the case, the earliest we can hope to see Edge of Tomorrow 2 is sometime in 2021, with 2022 probably a touch more likely. Will audiences still care about a near-decade old science fiction movie that underwhelmed at the box office by then? I hope they do, because the bizarre and temporally trippy universe of this franchise is positively crying out for expansion. Let’s hope that Warner Bros. manage to get all their ducks in a line on this one and Doug Liman gets his wish.