Director Christopher McQuarrie Teases R-Rated Project in the Works With Tom Cruise, Out of Character for the Actor
Director Christopher McQuarrie and actor Tom Cruise have a long working relationship with each other that began when McQuarrie wrote and produced the 2008 film Valkyrie, then adapted and directed Jack Reacher, wrote The Edge of Tomorrow and The Mummy, and directed Cruise in the last two Mission: Impossible films. In the years since, the men worked on the Top Gun sequel, which is currently scheduled to come out this December, and they have the next two Mission: Impossible films coming up as well.
But apparently, that’s not enough for the pair, as McQuarrie said in a recent interview with Empire that he and Cruise are working on another project as well. The director also opened up about his disappointment that he and Cruise couldn’t continue the Jack Reacher franchise, as they had a plan to take the character, who is based on the popular book series, to a very dark place. He said:
“Tom and I were talking about, had the series continued, to take Reacher to a place where, in the post-Deadpool, post-Joker world, Reacher could have been an R-rated movie and an R-rated franchise and really fed into the brutality of those books. We were fully ready to lean into that.”
But he teased that this new project makes the Reacher action look small, saying:
“It’s a very un-Tom character, and we have plans for an even more un-Tom character that we’ve been talking about, which I’m hopeful about in the future. […] The franchise has moved on, and we haven’t. So we’ve now got stuff in the hopper. The [Jack Reacher] stuff we’re talking about now is tinker toys [compared to it], I’m actually very, very excited.”
Interesting… I have no idea when they would have the time to make said project, as the next few years are pretty jam-packed. But it is interesting to hear about Cruise playing something slightly different. Hopefully we will hear some more info about the idea. Maybe in a few weeks at Comic-Con@Home?
What kind of dark character story would you like to see Tom Cruise play?