Tom Cruise can do no wrong, in my opinion. I was listening to a Grantland podcast episode recorded as part of the site’s Tom Cruise Week coverage, and the Grantland team was talking about Cruise as Hollywood’s “most effortful” action star. Now that I know effortful is an actual word in the English language, I think it perfectly captures what I like about Cruise. He tries. He tries hard. If a Cruise movie is going to fail — and these days, if they don’t carry the Mission: Impossible brand name, they often do — it won’t be for the star’s lack of trying. For instance, I didn’t care for Oblivion, but I liked what Cruise was going for and I liked that he was pushing to make something interesting.
Cruise is well-known for his impressive stunt work, sitting Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation, which hits theaters this Friday. Obviously all those stunts require some movie magic to bring to the screen, but they also take serious guts to capture on camera in the first place. So to you, Mr. Cruise, an “A” for effort.
That brings us to Edge of Tomorrow, which Cruise told MTV News he’s got a sequel idea for. “I pitched it to [Christopher] McQuarrie and Doug [Liman]. We were there one night and I was like, I’ve got an idea for it,” Cruise said. “It could be so much fun.” It seems Cruise reached out to his Edge of Tomorrow co-star Emily Blunt about his grand idea, too, to which she begged, “Give me another year, please.” If I’m Cruise I’m giving her another year, because Blunt was quite a revelation in her role if you ask me, but on the business end of things I wonder if Warner Bros. would even entertain the idea of a sequel.
Edge of Tomorrow was one of my favorite movies of 2014 and arguably the best action film the year had to offer, and yet it landed in theaters across the country with nary an audible thud, and the film just barely entered “modest hit” territory via the international box office. Studios don’t like to spend $178 million on modest hits. Cruise is committed to bringing thrilling and thought-provoking action storytelling to the big screen, but given Edge of Tomorrow‘s middling box office performance, I’d be surprised if a sequel came about.
But at any rate, if the studio is game Cruise apparently has an idea for an Edge of Tomorrow sequel, and the movie lover in me would happily pay to see it even without knowing the specifics. And hey, who knows, maybe the first one made enough money on home video after being retitled Live Die Repeat: Edge of Tomorrow to warrant a followup.
The prospects of a sequel would seem to come down to whether or not Cruise can impose his will on Warner Bros., because the studio had a hell of a time trying to sell the first one. Perhaps they can figure it out given a second chance. Now the question becomes, what would a sequel be called? Edge of 2morrow? 2 Edge 2morrow? Live Die Repeat 2: Edge of the Day After Tomorrow? Live Die Repeat, Repeat, Repeat? Hm…
