2014’s Tom Cruise science fiction adventure Edge of Tomorrow was truly lightning in a bottle. Manga adaptations are hard to do, but the Doug Liman-Tom Cruise collaboration turned out to be a fantastic film and was thus received quite favourably upon release, with fans clamouring for a sequel ever since. However, due to a variety of factors, development on Edge of Tomorrow 2 has, for the lack of a better word, stalled. So let’s dive into this situation and see what keeps the sequel from seeing the light of day.
Based on the manga ‘All You Need is Kill’ by Hiroshi Sakurazaka, Edge of Tomorrow sees the planet attacked and decimated by seemingly invincible aliens, with all military units unable to keep them at bay, let alone beat them. Maj. William Cage (Tom Cruise), an officer who has never seen combat, is assigned to a suicide mission. A coward and a deserter, Cage is killed within moments but shockingly finds himself thrown into a time loop, in which he relives the same brutal fight - and his death - over and over again. However, Cage's fighting skills improve with each encore, bringing him and a comrade (Emily Blunt) ever closer to defeating the aliens.
With epic battles and massive set pieces, Edge of Tomorrow was not cheap at $178 million. Released in summer 2014, it grossed around $370 million worldwide and thus didn't exactly set the box office on fire upon release. However, the film was very well received in all metrics. Thus, with critical acclaim and high praise from general audiences, it was expected that the film would perform splendidly on home media. As home media sales picked up and more people saw the film, Warner Bros. realized the potential franchise at its hand. As a result, a few months after release, there were rumblings that the story might indeed move forward through a direct sequel.
In 2015, it was reported that Cruise had had a great idea for a sequel, and he was ecstatic about it, eager to bring it to the studio. Next year, Doug Liman was said to have signed on to direct the sequel, with screenwriters Joe Shrapnel and Anna Waterhouse writing the script for the film. A few months later, Limon stated that the sequel would blow people’s socks off and that he was much more impressed by the story this time around. In May 2017, Liman revealed the title of the sequel to be ‘Live Die Repeat and Repeat,’ and he also made it known that both Cruise and Blunt will be back in their respective roles. As time went on with no signs of production starting, it was speculated that scheduling conflicts might be the cause of the film not getting the green light yet.
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With the film going back into the writing phase in 2018, Liman was said to be collaborating with Jez Butterworth on a script rewrite, incorporating ideas both Cruise and the studio had had about the project. In the same year, Emily Blunt was pressed about updates on the film, and she said that while everybody was enthusiastic about it, it had been hard to get everyone together to make the film, as Cruise is always busy. In March 2019, it was reported that the previous script had been scrapped and Matthew Robinson had been commissioned by the studio to write a new screenplay. Some months later, Liman confirmed that this new script was done.
Any hopes for the sequel hitting production were quickly dashed when the COVID-19 pandemic hit in 2020. As the industry revived in the years after the pandemic, it quickly became clear that the defining factor in making this sequel materialize has always been Tom Cruise. Cruise did Edge of Tomorrow in a time when he was briefly experimenting with everything (from the Rock of Ages musical and gritty action drama Jack Reacher in 2012 to the slow science fiction Oblivion in 2013). Since 2015, Cruise has almost exclusively focused on the Mission Impossible series, and with that finally at an end this year, he has lined up new projects, including Top Gun 3, the new Alexander Gonzales Innraittu film, and the SpaceX adventure that is to be filmed in the space station. So, for the foreseeable future, Cruise’s schedule is packed, which means bad news for Edge of Tomorrow fans.
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However, we were treated to a slight glimmer of hope recently. Cruise and Warner Bros came together to sign an expansive deal in 2024 to produce both original fare and franchise films together. With Edge of Tomorrow 2 reportedly a high priority for Warner Bros, this means that the sequel might finally have the necessary push to see the light of day. However, Warner’s own financial outlook is looking less than great, so they might not be so eager to give the expensive time travel story another go.
It is truly a misfortune that we have not been able to get a sequel to what is essentially one of the best science fiction films of the last decade. With the film being genuinely great, the box office and home media sales both being respectable, and even the cast and crew ready to dive back into this world, why haven't the people in charge fast-tracked this sequel remains a mystery to this day? Surely there are ways to incorporate Cruise’s busy schedule, and maybe one day, we will have an Edge of Tomorrow 2, but that day seems far away.
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Thus, it is clear that the Edge of Tomorrow sequel is dependent only on Tom Cruise, and so when exactly it ends up releasing is not set. Cruise is known for long breaks between his sequels, but what he does excel at is making sequels that blow people’s socks off. So expect EoT 2 to be more epic than the first one and go deeper into the lore of the aliens and their unique abilities. We can only hope Mr. Cruise finds the time within his extremely busy schedule to get this sequel together as fast as possible.
