Tom Cruise’s Real-Life Space Adventure Film Project Has Been Grounded
For a while it looked like Tom Cruise was gearing up to make cinematic history with the first narrative feature film shot in actual space, teaming up once again with Doug Liman, the director of Edge of Tomorrow.
It was the kind of wild swing that was perfectly suited for Cruise, who has been outdoing himself with practical stunts for decades. But the long developing NASA backed project has reportedly been shelved, ending what could have been one of the most ambitious productions ever attempted.
Page Six reports that the film hit a permanent stall over an unexpected obstacle. According to their source, the entire endeavor needed cooperation from NASA and approval at the federal level, which is where Cruise tapped the brakes.
The insider explained, "From what I understand, 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."
This project first caught attention in 2020 when NASA confirmed the actor would actually shoot scenes aboard the International Space Station.
There haven’t been many updates, but in 2022, Universal Pictures chair Donna Langley reignited excitement by saying, "Tom Cruise is taking us to space. He’s taking the world to space."
She added, "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 spacewalk outside of the space station."
The movie itself was set to follow Cruise as “a down on his luck guy who finds himself in the position of being the only person who could save Earth.” It is a shame we won’t get to see him make this movie or floating outside the ISS for real, since if any actor was ever going to pull off a legit spacewalk on camera, it would have been Cruise.
While this ambitious chapter closes, the actor is already deep into his next project, an untitled film from Alejandro G. Iñárritu, the Oscar winning filmmaker behind The Revenant. Details remain under wraps, but Cruise leads a cast that includes Jesse Plemons, Emma D’Arcy, John Goodman, Sandra Hüller, Riz Ahmed, Sophie Wilde, and Michael Stuhlbarg.
The Iñárritu film arrives in theaters on October 2, 2026, so even though Cruise won’t be jetting off to the International Space Station anytime soon, he’s got plenty of other projects keeping him busy.