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Tom Cruise Is Taking Us to Space: Universal Boss Confirms Movie Onboard the ISS

It’s been a minute since confirmation came that Tom Cruise was heading to space to shoot a movie, with backing from NASA and Elon Musk’s SpaceX. While not much has been heard of the topic in a year, it was never truly off the table.
Tom Cruise's latest project is a Universal movie featuring footage of himself on the ISS 7 photos
Photo: Paramount Pictures
Tom Cruise does PSA in viral leaked video for Mission: Impossible Dead Reckoning Part TwoTom Cruise does PSA in viral leaked video for Mission: Impossible Dead Reckoning Part TwoTom Cruise does PSA in viral leaked video for Mission: Impossible Dead Reckoning Part TwoTom Cruise does PSA in viral leaked video for Mission: Impossible Dead Reckoning Part TwoTom Cruise does PSA in viral leaked video for Mission: Impossible Dead Reckoning Part TwoTom Cruise does PSA in viral leaked video for Mission: Impossible Dead Reckoning Part Two
Like most major industries, Hollywood was dealt a huge blow by the 2020 international health crisis. Tom Cruise is perhaps one of the few actors to have continued working throughout it all (with minor exceptions), but not even he is immune to the economic effects the crisis had. Plans to have him fly to space in order to shoot a movie onboard the International Space Station (ISS), or at least segments from it, were stalled because of this very reason.

They are now back in full gear, as confirmed by Universal Chairman Donna Langley in a new interview with the BBC: Tom Cruise is taking us to space. Those were her actual words; we’re not paraphrasing.

“Tom Cruise is taking us to space,” Langley said. “He's taking the world to space. That's the plan. 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.”

Cruise won't shoot the entire film there, though. The chunk of the action sees him do his usual stuff on planet Earth, while the third act forces his character to board a rocket for the ISS so he will be able to save the world. He will get there, do what needs to be done, and hopefully be able to return to the Earth he's just saved.

Langley did not say whether director Doug Liman is still onboard the project. Liman is a longtime Cruise collaborator who previously worked with him on The Edge of Tomorrow and who said a while back that their project already had “space insurance.” Previous reports noted that Liman would fly to space with Cruise alongside an unnamed and yet-to-be-cast female actress.

Another glaring omission from Langley concerns the timeline of the project, but that’s to be expected considering its 2-year unexpected pause. Even when you have someone as A-list as Tom Cruise, pre-production hell can last a very long time, it seems. But the sexagenarian is heading to space, at least in some capacity, whereas everyone else will just have to settle for shooting against a green screen.
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Editor's note: Photos in the gallery show a Tom Cruise stunt, for the upcoming Mission: Impossible 7 movie.

About the author: Elena Gorgan
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Elena has been writing for a living since 2006 and, as a journalist, she has put her double major in English and Spanish to good use. She covers automotive and mobility topics like cars and bicycles, and she always knows the shows worth watching on Netflix and friends.
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