Doug Liman Still Has His Sights Set on Space with Tom Cruise - "I Want to Make a Film That People Watch in a Hundred Years"
While premiering Asteroid in Venice, Doug Liman also addressed the other ambitious project fans have been waiting on… the movie that he plans to shoot in actual outer space with Tom Cruise.
The project was first revealed in 2020, but since then updates have been scarce. Liman confirmed that it’s still very much on his mind, though nothing is officially in motion just yet.
“I’ve just finished this [Asteroid] so I’m now processing what next and what I learned, part of it will be how the audience reacts to it,” Liman explained.
“You’d rather I give you more concrete answers but you’re getting me totally raw… I don’t know where it leaves me. I know I want to do more in space… I am more excited about this idea of characters who have no business of going into space after making this.”
That fascination with flawed or unlikely heroes is something that runs through Liman’s entire career. “My movies are all anti-heroes. Tom Cruise is a coward in Edge of Tomorrow; he’s a full on criminal in American Made; Matt Damon kills people for a living in The Bourne Identity and Brad and Angie both kill people for a living [Mr. and Mrs. Smith].
“I’m interested in like my kinds of characters going into space and I love that in Asteroid, we got to cram five of them into this teeny second-hand capsule.”
For Liman, making a movie in actual space isn’t just about breaking records, headlines, or a gimmick. He makes it clear that the project has to stand on its own as a piece of storytelling that would hold up for decades.
“I’m more excited about going to space, not less… but our goal is to make something great. A lot of people are trying to do gimmicky things like, ‘Oh, it’s in space’.
“I’m not interested in doing something that’s just a promotional gimmick. I want to make a film that people watch in a hundred years when maybe there’s hundreds of movies shot in outer space and there’s nothing special about it being in outer space.”
The director also stressed that the challenge is figuring out what space can bring to storytelling that Earth simply can’t replicate. “If I ever shoot a movie in outer space, the question will be what could I do that you couldn’t do on earth that makes for a great piece of entertainment, that’s better than if you didn’t do it in space.”
For now, both Liman and Cruise are tied up with other projects, leaving the space movie on the horizon rather than the launchpad. Still, Liman sees it as a personal goal and a natural continuation of his career-long obsession with pushing technology and storytelling further.
As he put it, “You can run a line from Swingers all the way through to this potential film in outer space.”
Source: Deadline